Wednesday 17th September

Well tonight I just felt like nothing went well, except trailer loading!

I got the trailer put in the field and also build myself a round pen out of electric fencing, so I was really keen to play with my new obstacles. I started with trying to play the seven games with the trailer as I thought this would be a good obstacle to use foe my assessment. I started with playing friendly game while she was standing on the ramp using the carrot stick and string. My plan was then to use porcupine game to move her FQ and HQ around while she stood on the ramp – this didn’t work as all she wanted to do was go in the trailer.. Next I tried to play yo yo game to back her off the ramp and then draw her back to me, I really had to go up my phases to get her off the ramp as again she just wanted to go in the trailer. So I decided to give up with playing with the trailer, as I didn’t want to keep making her feel wrong for wanting to go in the trailer.

We moved on to play with transitions in the round pen – she was good and made upward and downward transitions with phase 1 or 2, but did seem to be cantering a lot faster today than normal.

We then moved up the field to play with sideways, I have set out two poles on the ground to help me judge if she is going forward or back at any time. She went sideways to the left quite well, but to the right I felt she still had a lot of brace and her HQ were dragging a little.

We then played with yo yo over a pole – tonight I think was the best she has done this. I took it really slow and allowed her to stop a couple of times when I felt she was maybe thinking about going squint. At these points she really licked and chewed which was nice to see and then when I asked her to moved backwards again she was much more willing. I then left it at that as she done it so well.

We then went to the round pen with the intention of playing with all seven games at liberty and also the other tasks you have to do for the level 2 assessment.
I started with extreme friendly game, she was really good at this and stood really well and look really relaxed. Next we played smell your tail, but tonight she was keen to hold the yield for 10 secs. Needle prep went ok, she was a little slow in responding to start with, and holding her tongue she was keen about so I had to hold for longer than normal until she relaxed. I then went to play porcupine game and she decided to leave and went off on a circle, I managed to get her back to me quite quickly. But she left again after this too. So we went back on line and played for a bit.

We then played with the trailer – she was brilliant!! Best trailer loading we have ever done. Tonight I was able to close the back bar over, front bar over and even closed both the front and back ramp up on her! I have never been able to put the back bar up since starting Parelli, so this was just a massive achievement for us. I did have Bridget (Shetland pony) in the trailer with her but that’s only because Bridget came in by herself. I have loads of photos of this so hopefully I will be able to upload one on to here.

Once I got her out of the trailer I saddled and bridled her – I managed to bridle from my knees tonight and saddling went really well. Had one problem though, when moving Blossom around in between girthing all she done was drag me back to the trailer so she could get in. This was a pony that only a few months ago I couldn’t get in the trailer and tonight she is trotting in fully tacked up – I couldn’t believe it!! Have a little video of this too!

Once I convinced her to come out the trailer I mounted and then played follow the rail around the outside of the roundpen in walk and trot. I then went up the field where I have placed two bending poles as markers so we could practice riding a figure of eight at trot. This went surprisingly well, she wasn’t on a total casual rein but I was really happy with this. Her head was lowered she had the correct bend in her body when on the circles, and she felt so good to ride.
Simple lead changes didn’t go so well, I haven’t really done this pattern with Blossom so I guess it was my own fault as she really didn’t understand why I wanted her to trot to change leads and was quite happy just do to a flying change for me. Which was lovely of her but I need to try and get her to do the simple ones first..

Well I suppose now that I have wrote everything down, I didn’t really have such a bad night. But for some reason I really felt like I did, strange!