Saturday 1st December

Today me and Kris went for a walk round the farm to find obstacles to play with. We started with playing in a puddle, Blossom was really good. She started by having one foot in the puddle then putting her nose in - then just walked through it. Our next challenge was to play circling game, we positioned ourselves so that the horses had to go down a small hill into a field, then back out on to the track, then back down into another field. It was really interesting as Blossom started on a circle going really quick, but then realised she had to slow down and think about where she was going or she would fall. We then headed up the woods to find more obstacles to play with - on the way I was getting Blossom to squeeze through the puddles, she was great!! I think she really likes the water!
The next challenge was to do a figure of eight around two tyres, I have been doing this quite alot with Blossom and I think it is starting to show as she done it really well. I think we will need to try this in trot soon.. Next we had to back the horses up to the tyre jump until their hocks touched the jump. I have never done this with Blossom before, and I could tell she was starting to loss her confidence as she kept turning round to look at the jump behind her then trying to walk forward again. I got her so she was about a metre a way from the jump, and decided that was enough for her, as I felt she was really trying hard. This is something we can now work on. Our next obstacle was a a tree next to a wall and we had to get the horses to squeeze through. It was quite a difficult challenge for them as there were low branches on the other side and also some branches on the ground. Blossom was good going through, a turned and faced at the other side. But was a little hesitant to go through the other way. I'm still not convinced this was a confidence issue, I think she was being cheeky as she had found a lovely bit of grass to munch. But after me asking her again she went through fine. We then played sideways with a log, Blossom was better than she had been the last time she played with this game. She seemed more confident and was really trying hard, I'm glad this game is getting better again. Kris set the next challenge of sitting on a log and getting the horse to squeeze over the log. I didn't think this was a good idea for me to try this as Blossom still isn't very confident jumping. So instead we played sideways again, with me sitting on the log. She was really good and seemed to know exactly what I was asking. Kris then decided to go back with Iona as she had already done some work before they came out. So me and Blossom moved on to squeezing over some of the smaller logs, she was great with me in her left eye but it took a few attempts using approach and retreat for her to jump with me in her right eye. I then thought it would be a good idea to do some work on leading as she doesn't always stop when I stop. We done lots of walk to stand to back up, it took quite a bit of work at the start to stop her going in front of me. If she when in front I would wiggle my rope and move my stick in front of her to back her up, and if she moved to the side after stopping I would use my stick to drive her back round. After around 20 mins of playing this, she was stopping with me and backing when I backed. It felt great!! So I thought that this would be a good place to stop.