Improvements

Thank you for the helpful and supportive comments yesterday. The pony wasn't spectacular, but she was well behaved enough in our lesson last night that I'll go ahead and keep her another week;) As predicted, her issues with forward magically disappeared last night. So that was good. But, in exchange we had either the runaway giraffe impression or the runaway train impression. I'm sure I was visibly frustrated, but my coach is amazing. Just when Bridget has figured out how to evade a specific exercise or protest something, EC comes up with a new non-confrontational way of getting what we want. So, we ended on a good note, where I had things to work on in my riding and Bridget had things to work on too but we were generally getting along just fine. By the end of this little adventure, I'm going to have a ton of pony training tips and exercises in my toolbox. Also, a ridiculous amount of patience.


We have a dressage clinic coming up this Thurs/Fri and a clear rounds jump schooling show day on Sat. I'm crossing my fingers hard I'm not wasting my money.

On the plus side, B moved in with the boys yesterday. Currently, the barn is pretty much all mares, which is kind of weird given most people's preferences for geldings. To even paddock numbers out a bit, Bridget got moved. I'm all for the move, because the boys are pretty rowdy and active and might keep her moving a lot more. Also, they're pretty much all dominant to her and pretty aggressive about enforcing the rules. I'm wondering how long it will take for the pony sass to tire them out. I think that's what happened with the mares. She's pretty much at the bottom of the pecking order, but got away with a lot simply because I think she's so persistent that they get tired of constantly having to police her. In the boy's paddock, she might meet her match with some of the younger geldings.  There are multiple hay feeders with hay available 24/7, but I'm also hopeful she won't be able to stand around and eat quite as much since the boys are always hungry from playing!

B sulking outside this morning because she's now last in the breakfast line. "NO GIRLZ ALLOWED" in our fort, say the geldings.  The only downside for me is that her blanket sustained some major damage at some point last night. I almost feel sorry for her.

And, finally, I need to share my saddle fitting recap from last Saturday in which I go crazy and contemplate buying expensive, custom tack for the little monster :)