At the Helm - Days 3/4

Day 3:
Did stalls, ate breakfast and not much else. It was a damp dismal sort of day. Eventually I cowgirled up (dude, we have an inside arena, I don't think I'm allowed to NOT work horses while I'm here) and grabbed Niki. I turned her out in the arena and she ran around angrily for a while, then settled down. I did my normal "oh god I want to sit on that horse so bad" thing and did, because she's a rock about mounting. We sat there pretty companionably, then I swung off and we went home.

Next up: Libby. I longlined her on Sunday and she was fine, so that's what I did again. She's a little spooky. I think really she's very sweet, just terribly slow. She'll spook at poles people put in the wrong place, and by spook it's just a stare, a snort, and perhaps some counterbent trotting. A couple times around and she's fine. She is pretty stiff to the left as compared to the right, but we did some nice trotting butterflies. Another thing she's spooky about, apparently, is people changing height.
Libby was super unenthusiastic about me approaching her with a mounting block on Sunday, but as soon as she sniffed it, she was over it all. Putting it by her side, dropping it, whatever. What she didn't want to get over was me stepping up and down on the block. She wouldn't necessarily run (though she tried a couple times), but she'd spook in place, snort, and stare at me. So, Tuesday was step aerobics day. I think she's still dumbfounded by the idea but mostly over the scary. People give scratches even if they do suddenly get 6 inches taller.

Gillian had gotten out of the trailer at this point and grabbed Colonel, with intent to pull the tire, so I dragged the singletree around and they watched. Colonel was none too pleased with this idea.

I rode Keno. He decided to be a jerk and stepped solidly on my foot. Neither of us were pleased about that. It was a fairly miserable ride, actually. He didn't want to trot AND give to my hands, so there was a lot of very held-together canter and as-fast-as-his-little-legs-could-go trot. We did more canter-trot transitions and, well, ended up with a really nice uphill canter. When I start cantering him, I can feel how much higher his croup is than his shoulders. By the end, it feels like he's coming under himself enough that he's really dropping his croup and lifting his shoulders. He doesn't resist the bit as much either anymore, which is a nice change. Ooh, we sort of schooled a canter half-pass, because he was being an idiot. It was poorly executed and really strange to ride, but I was surprised that he tried it at all.

Went back to the trailer and warmed up, then we went out and had Luca pull the tire. He wasn't thrilled about it but behaved overall.

Day 4-
I still have school! Class started at 10, so I left at 8. I got up at 6:30 to try and do some stalls, but Gillian had put the tractor in too far in the other barn, and I didn't want to reverse it because I was reasonably sure it would end terribly. Instead, I opened doors to runs, loaded hay, and helped feed. Vic did me a favor and brought the tractor over, and Gillian appeared shortly thereafter. I did 5-ish stalls before I had to head out.

Returned around 5. I longlined Libby again. I had vague intentions of working her outside, so I left the gate open. She showed a little attitude there! It wasn't bad at all and we got through it, but I'm glad it happened. We did some more trot butterflies. I don't think she's naturally a nice mover, but she's powerful, and has been taught the correct way, so it looks good. She'll be really flashy in a cart when she sheds out black and has some muscle on her. I've been trying to only work her fifteen-twenty minutes since she knows what she's doing, she just isn't in shape to do it for very long anymore. We walked around outside and she only made a few token attempts to eat grass, which was nice, and ended the session. Her tail is a number of dreadlocks, which bothers the hell out of me, so I spritzed one down real good with detangler and worked it out. Libby wasn't thrilled, but was pretty patient with me.

I'm going to try and ride Niki tomorrow morning while Gillian is here, in case things go poorly, but maybe we'll work Luca instead. My other two ponies, it doesn't matter when I work them. I "trust" Keno, and Libby's a piece of cake. Last day in charge!