stiffness!

Kiki is learning that seeing me means lots of nice things...treats, petting, grooming...she still ran away for a second, but curious, she came over in investigate what I was carrying (a macintosh apple). I helped with some barn chores, including moving the two new colts inside, when we went to get them they were both completely asleep in the field, super cute!

We got to our regular grooming routine, and I removed another pound of hair with the shedding blade! Now that Kiki has her own saddle, we tacked up, with no halter under the bridle, no racing yoke, no racing bridle with draw reins. She's a big girl now! Just a full cheek bridle, and standing martingale, and a pretty jumping saddle! We long-lined her for a bit to get her moving out and just to see if she had any objections to the new saddle (she didn't), she did protest a little with some mini meltdowns, but I got after her quickly for those antics. It was REALLY windy today and with some of the indoor's windows open there were all kinds of distractions, but she settled in and it was time to get on! She did fantastic again with the mount block and L led me for a few steps and away we went. Straight to work is the best way for her. She felt great! Her gaits are just beautiful.

But let's get to the stiffness...ugh...is she stiff tracking right. She falls in completely, diving around her corners and since she isn't listening to my inside leg aids (or she just doesn't know what they mean) I am struggling with getting her to bend in that direction. We did lots of turns, lots of circles, lots of changes in direction, to keep her thinking about what might be coming next. After 20 minutes or so of trot work L returned and asked me to canter her (yikes). We started tracking left, and she got right into the canter and we circled around a few times before turning to the right. It was a disaster. I was using every aid I could and she just trotted bigger and more crazy. I brought her back, started over...again we tried...nope. Another 6-7 times we tried, and I was fearing that L was getting tired of us, we finally got a canter on the right lead, and it fell apart when she started sucking back and hopping up and down...ugh. We tried a few more times and we just couldn't get it so I asked for a crop...A magic stick! I basically flapped it in front of her eye and she got the message, she still acted willful about getting into the canter, but a quick smack on her right shoulder and we had it!!!! Tah-Dah! We cantered around and I broke us into a nice forward trot. We were done for the day!

The thing that was hard to learn today was figuring out how to ride her when she starts sucking back and acting nutty. My experience of having to ride tough horses has led me to leaning forward and riding aggressively, which doesn't work with her. Riding that much on the forehand is going to send me into the dirt when she acts up. I need to just sit up and ride her through it!

More tomorrow!