Today was pretty uneventful for us, which is never really a bad thing. I wanted to do the bag simulations before I saddled her just to see what side of the corral she woke up on this morning and test the waters since she just had a weekend off. I'm glad I did because she was very skeptical of the bag and was quite snorty at it. It took about 1/2 hour to get her back to being really confident with it like she was on Friday where I could slap it all over, swing it around, plop it on her butt, etc and she was totally relaxed.
I tacked her up and then went to play with the barrels. This is really hard for her. Rosie is very aware of her personal space and if you squeeze in on it she feels it and squirts through. She has a hard time with the barrels, she either will walk up and stop or get nervous that you're going to push her over them and rush at them and jump. She has a pretty good bring back so even the few times she sailed over like a kite she did turn and face right away which was nice so she didn't drag me down the arena. We worked on the jumps for a LONG time today with lots of breaks. I set them up so there was a gap at first she could walk through and slowly narrowed it. I had the bigger blue barrels which she didn't want to jump so I put a smaller white one between them (she jumped the white ones last week) and she was fine to go over it set up that way. After lots of approach and retreat, being particular about her maintaining gait and not anticipating, assuming, or rushing I did end it with her walking up, jumping, landing, and turning-facing over the blue barrels. I was very pleased with this!!
We also did some work with the plate today. Better than the last time, we got all four feet on today!
One thing I've been thinking about regarding Rosie's and my progress/performance in class is that because she's not as afraid as many of the other horses I have a really good opportunity to work on more refinement with her. Granted refinement at the level of a young, un-started horse is minimal, but I find that with Rosie I can be more particular and expect a little more from her...which is the type of refinement I'm talking about. I can really work on her emotional fitness and things like jumping or sideways where as many other students are still just trying to get their horses calm. I hope that it is evident that even though I'm taking it slow with her it is because I'm expecting more quality out of the exercises - not just in the physical department but in the emotional and mental side as well. I personally feel that Rosie's physically big enough to do the work, and mentally is mature enough to handle pressure and challenges, but emotionally she's still young and unsure. I'm really glad to be able to work on this and play with it a bit before moving into riding because I think the payoff will be greater once I have her calm all the way down into her core.
I'm being pretty particular about her going over the jumps and anything else that has to do with squeezing her personal space because when I get on and ride she'll be handling me right in her bubble and won't be able to just shake me loose (hopefully!) and squirt away.
Tomorrow I'd like to work on transitions, and I think we're doing first rides too. Yay! :)
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