Wednesday 8th October

Today I had the osteopath coming to check my new pony, Smarty. He was running late as usual so I used that time to spend extra time with Blossom. I went into the field and she caught me well, and then we headed back up to the stables playing a few games on route. We then played around with stand still for grooming using the new technique on the SC dvd, it worked really well and Blossom was standing still very quickly. After giving her a good brush I decided to tidy her main up as its getting really long and messy. It was quite windy outside so it wasn’t very easy to pull a mane in the wind, there was a free stable next to where we were standing so I asked her to squeeze into there. Normally it takes around 5 minutes to get her confident enough to go in a stable, but today she walked in straight away!! She then stood perfect and allowed me to pull her main (solo comb & Scissors) at one point I thought she was actually going to go to sleep.
She then stood in the stable really well while Smarty had his treatment.

We then headed out to the field to play, we stated with friendly then moving on to yo yo game, I had to go to phase 4 a couple of times as she was just ignoring me but after that she went quite well.
We then moved on to sideways starting off with using the fence again, we done a lot if this as there was still a lot of brace through her body. But nearer the end she got a lot better.

Circling game was next and this was where the problems started!! The first few laps each direction were ok, but she really wasn’t focusing on what she was meant to be doing or what I was asking off her. Next thing I knew she went really RB as she does and started throwing her little tantrums, so tonight I matched her energy. But she just seemed to go and go and go. So I ended up using the fence to help me stop her and make her think a little before she took off again in the opposite direction. I remember having to do this over a year ago when we first started in level 1. After doing this for a good few laps she started to calm so I moved away from the fence again, but as soon as she started to get worked up I went straight back to the fence line to help slow her down. After what seemed liked forever we got some really nice soft circles, so I stopped her at that.

We then moved on to playing squeeze game through the fillers and over a pole. It’s interesting to see how much Blossom still sometimes has problems with this, especially going through the fillers. The pole she does seem a lot more confident with now, and always seems to be trying to offer me something else – her favourite is to try and stand up on the poles. She hasn’t worked out yet that poles move that’s why she can’t get both front feet up very easily!!

I then moved back to circling game using these two obstacles to help maintain her focus, it seemed to work well for her as she really appeared to be thinking about what I was asking her to do and thinking her way through the obstacles.

Hopefully the weather forecast will be wrong for the next couple of days, so I can get out to play. Fingers crossed!!