Barometer

I discovered something new today in my dressage lesson.  It was an ah-ha moment and something that I think will help me quite a bit as I move forward with Theo and we scrabble our way up the levels.

Theo's butt is a barometer.

Hear me out.  Today we were doing turn on the haunches and turn on the forehand.  Mi papi is the master of turn on the forehand, but turn on the haunches?  That busts a circuit in his little brain.  It's sticky turning right, but turning left?  Holy smokes, the pony seriously doesn't get it.  I can see the smoke coming from his ears when we work on this.  We've graduated past needing a wall and Trainer A helping from the ground to get some steps, but it's still rough and very dicey.  He really doesn't enjoy these lessons.

As we went and the pressure built, his butt dropped.  The closer we got to his threshold, the less horse I had behind the saddle.  As Trainer A put it, his croup dropped three inches while we worked on turn on the haunches.  He was seriously considering blowing his top at one point because I kept telling him to not swing his haunches when I wanted a turn on the haunches, but that's what he's good at so he kept offering it.  No, no, not what I want, try again.

It was a relief when we got some good steps and could call it a day before we dropped too far.

So as the barometer drops, the chance of storms increases.  Works out just like the real thing.

After our lesson, I took mi papi out for a nice mosey on the trails to convince his butt to come back up and to forgive me for pushing his brain that hard.  I also spent a good five minutes rubbing his ears after I got off while his head hung down around my knees.  I think he forgave me.

He's lucky he's so cute