Dealing with the Unexpected

 

First of all the happy update: after giving Carmen 4 days off and 3 days of NSAIDS she seemed to be completely fine. I did some free lunging and she looked good. The next day I rode her to see how she was. 

Me: okay Carmen we're going to have a nice quiet ride. Lots of walk and some gentle trot. 

Carmen: 

She was quite sassy and even managed to sneak in some big dekes/spooks. So I decided that this was a good time to work on getting her to soften and relax even when she wasn't feeling like she wanted to. And we did. 

I have to say that my biggest triumph with Carmen is not that I can ride out her antics or even prevent them. It's that I can get her to the other side of her rage to a place of calm.  

Since then we've returned to normal work and things are going well with her. Mostly.  I'm just happy that her injury was not serious. 

Remember Oliver the kitten who appeared on our doorstep? Well he's settled in quite nicely. But we think he's deaf or severely hearing impaired. He really doesn't react to noises, quiet or loud and sometimes I think we startle him because he didn't hear us coming. Thank heavens we took him in because there's no way he'd have survived outside. I'm glad we found him. He's now officially an indoor kitty. 

nothing like a box

My rides on Quaid are going well. I've been focusing on up and down transitions to make them smoother. They are getting a lot better.  Our trot-canter transitions feel really good. The down ones still need a ton of work. 

closely watching my sand delivery for the ring

I've done work of setting up things that are distractions in the past. But lately the universe is doing it for me. They've started to clean up the property next door. It has involved some heavy equipment and possibly a chain saw. Yesterday I was riding Quaid and we were doing really well.  We were cantering up the long side by the next field when he started throwing his haunches in. 

Hmm. Come back, regroup ask again. This time going down the long side we start going sideways. I bring him back and he starts doing his move of planting his front feet and spinning on them. I immediately start riding a 10 metre circle. On our second circle I see what's going on: a large truck pulling a trailer drives right beside us and over to where the junk is. 

Me: aha! Now I see the issue. 

Quaid: I saved us! Time to abort. 

Last year I might have dismounted and called it a day. I checked my watch and we'd been working for about 40 minutes. But I didn't want him thinking that when the world throws a surprise we can stop and exit. So I returned to work: walk, trot and canter transitions on the circle. I ignored the truck (which was gone now anyway) and I gave him other things to think about instead of 'where did it go and what if it comes back?' 

Once we had a lovely transitions and, more importantly, his focus, I called it quits. I was happy with both of us. I am pleased that I feel more secure on him and less worried about what might happen. And, of course, this makes me ride with confidence and give him confidence as well. 

Tomorrow I take both horses to Krista's for our lessons. I'm pretty sure that it will have some moments for Quaid but that's what it's all about.