Victory!

Not that I'm asking for a lot these days, but today we had progress! I do love progress.

So, after the ground poles fiasco, I went to the COTH board and asked for advice. I've had a horse that rushed before (Allen, aka The Hellbeast) so I do know some tricks, but I wanted to hear more. The suggestions were varied, but many made sense and I went back to the drawing board. For the past week, when not snowed in due to storms, we have been working on the quality of her canter and getting her very used to ground poles. Days of circling and trotting over poles at random seem to have cemented the idea in her head.

Poles are poles. Not jumps.

Add to that more transitions and half halt work than any one horse should be subjected to, and I thought we were pretty prepped for our lesson. Aside from all of our schooling, we made a couple of other switches. We jumped in the hackamore today, and I gave her some antacids before we went in. I noticed she's been getting girthy. Combine that with the meltdowns during anything that causes tension and I started to wonder if her stomach was bothering her. I can completely sympathize, Tums is practically a food group for me.

I did manage to botch things from a scientific standpoint by adjusting so many variables at once, but damn it, I wanted a good lesson over fences. We're both overdue. Turns out my instructor had a brainstorming session with my trainer the night before and the agenda for us had changed drastically. While the rest of the class worked over the usual type of course work, Fiona and I were set on some special exercises. We had some very steep crossrails set up with poles on the landing side. They were set up in the middle of the ring so we would jump toward a wall.

It gets better.

The instructions were to go over the jump, and the direction we were going to turn would be called out while we were in the air. With about three strides between landing and the wall. Let me tell you, both the princess and I were backing way off after a couple reps. More cross rails were added in, all with landing poles and tight turns before and after, and turning directions being called in the air. The princess backed her own pretty butt off once she figured out what this game was. New goal in life, keep Fiona a bit confused.

As the lesson went on, more poles appeared. By the end, she had a pole in front and behind of each jump and she was going through them like a lady. We were grooving so well toward the end that I didn't even realize I left her in a canter from one fence to the next. It just felt right, so we went for it. That's two steep cross rails set on a 20 meter turn at the canter. Definitely the highlight of our winter so far.

Now, unfortunately, I have to do some investigation work. Will she jump in her Happy Mouth as well as the hackamore so long as we keep her at that point of mild confusion? Brakes and steering do suffer in the hackamore, but she doesn't suck back at all. At this point, I'd almost rather have her fight me than just disappear behind my hands. She has no issue at all with pushing into the hackamore, and we were doing some very tight turns. The cross rails were ten meters from the rail, or less in one case. If we can do that in a hackamore, clearly our steering will hold up in the usual stadium round. I'd just prefer the better handling that comes with the snaffle, so long as she will accept it. If not, hackamore it is. I'm pretty open minded. Whatever makes the princess happy.

We'll keep up the antacids for a bit and see if that helps with her anxiety. If it does, we'll pursue the possibility of ulcers. Not a surprise for a hot tamale of a TB mare.

In the meantime, I will bask in the the glory of a victory. It's been far too long. I'm quite sure the princess was happy to have a lesson end like that as well. Her swagger definitely conveyed a feeling of 'that was fun, can we do it again?'. Now she has to play dressage pony for a couple days to prepare for our next dressage lesson. If we can get some serious work done on those half halts, we might have the makings of an eventer on our hands.