The rain rot is getting better and it doesn’t hurt to touch her in her ichy spots so I started to work her again. It’s Africa hot these days so “working” my horse consists of 20 minutes of lunging and yet another attempt to get my girl comfortable in the was stall (which is super scary it appears) I get my girl all ready with her cavason and lunge line, gloves on and we go into the indoor ring for some up down transitions. To my utter delight she does everything I ask. Walk, trot, halt, trot, walk, trot, halt, walk. I try to mix it up and she gets it. Shes always been shaky on “walk” confusing it with “halt” but on this day the light bulb went off in her head. I was jumping for joy, telling her what a wonderful girl she was with lots of praise and scratches.Then on to the wash stall for some work just going in and being calm. Which we did, she went in, didn’t spook, didn’t fret, I gave her her head and let her just explore it on her own. Let her stand in there for a few minutes, then we left.
Next on to the outdoor ring. It was a bright and hot sunny Maryland day and several ladies from my barn were in the shade of the communal table area we call the “tiki hut” to escape the sun. It’s got a perfect view of the outdoor ring and we often sit and watch each other work our ponies. I head off to the ring where I thought I would just see how Jez reacted with all the new distractions. Again she just did as I asked of her, lunging in both directions in a cool, clam, collected trot. Someone had left some poles on the ground so I decide to trot her over them. Yep, she did that with out a bat of her pretty horse eyelashes. As she came around the ground poles there was a small jump set up, my intention was to take her around on the inside of the jump but her intention was to jump over it. So that’s what we did. She went right for it and Wham! right over it! All the ladies at the tiki hut were clapping and laughing and one shouted out where do you think you are England! My response “Were practicing for the Olympics!” I couldn’t have been more happy with my girl, her bravery and ability to bounce back from her hissy fit the other day and transition back into my sweet, brave, willing to please, super clever, girl.
We repeated this lunge lesson the next day but instead of the outdoor ring and ground poles I took her into one of the empty fields to lunge her. She did amazingly well for a second day in a row, paying attention with all the distractions. Being worked in a new place didn’t faze her at all. Shes a whole different horse from last weeks crazy mare. Maybe she just needed to have temper tantrum to blow off some horse steam or maybe just maybe she somehow knows I just hired a horse trainer to help me work on some of her outstanding issues and decided to show me much how she loves it when I waste my money on her!