C'mon Already! Let's Go!

Fellow Canadians might remember that Grey Power (auto insurance) commercial. There is an elderly person stopped at an intersection, not proceeding, and the lady in the car behind him is honking and shouting "C'mon already! Let's go!" After which the narrator intones..."You don't drive like them, so why should you pay the same insurance?" The first time we saw it I turned to G and said "Finally! They're going to start charging me less because I'm not old and senile and going to cause an accident!!!"

And...that wasn't the point of the commercial...at all. It's actually cheap insurance for elderly "safe" drivers. The "them" you don't drive like was supposed to be the impatient lady. G will never let me live that down, so you can guess how many million times I've heard "C'mon already...." from him when he thinks I am rushing into things ;)

Because we haven't had a pony-posing-with-a-jump pic in a while

After watching Rolex all weekend and realizing we have less than a week to prep for our next show, you can also guess what my level of patience was like for my (once again) behind the leg pony. 

Lucky she's so cute

Saturday, we popped over some jumps, but rather than the engine getting revved up, it almost seemed more stuck. So, off we went to school lots and lots of up transitions.  Unlike the commercial, we DO want to drive off like a sports car rather than a little old man in a sensible sedan. The pony then went into "Aaaarrgghhh I can be forward but I cannot stop, cannot half halt, will just move my legs really fast and drag you around" mode. So, we incorporated lots of downward transitions, and some further drama ensued. Finally, pony remembered she can go softly on the bit, forwards and backwards. She gave some way better tries at sitting a little in the canter, so got rewarded with some jumps . They felt fabulous!!

Sunday was more of the same...Bridget just not into taking me anywhere, let alone to the fences. So, my super long dressage whip made an appearance. She's a crafty little thing, because obviously me holding a dressage whip means "run away at the trot with your head in the air!!1!" It all boils down to her really, really not wanting to be honest in the contact and in front of my leg at the same time. I won't lie, there are plenty of days where I wish I wasn't the only motivated one in our little partnership!

"Go ahead and make me!" says Ms B

It would be easy to be hard on myself and think of all the ways I could have had a better ride, or trained this pony better (seriously, each day I spent probably 30 min of struggle for 15 min of OK) but for today I am going to instead be grateful that EC has given me the tools and confidence to work through stuff on my own. The finesse is definitely lacking on my end, but I'm much more effective than I was a few months ago. I am also grateful that Bridget is far more mature these days and we're starting to make compromises for each other. Or rather, she's starting to be honest on a far more regular basis and I simply give up sometimes and just trail ride. Matching a grumpy lazy pony with an impatient lets-do-this-NOW rider actually has sort of turned out ok :)

Summer coat is coming in...finally!

Next on the agenda:

Coach is in the UK (yes, attending Badminton, lucky lady), so no lessons this week, but we're going sans coach to Hunter/Jumper show on Saturday.

May 28: Dressage % Day show

June 4/5: MREC Spring HT

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