Bobby plays a fun game.

The game was called "Because I said so, that's why." Its focal point was on him wanting to canter and me wanting him to trot and him saying, "But we've been trotting!" and me saying, "I don't give a shit. You're going to trot because I said so!"

Here was today's other fun game:

crappy cell phone picture taken off of bobby during cool out.

all a daunting 2'6", though they look smaller.

Bobby really, really wanted to canter after trotting in warmup. He needs to learn that riding doesn't always go w/t/c. So each time he tried to leap into the canter, I halted him and backed him up a couple steps before asking him to trot again. And not just little mincy trot--a big, normal horse trot. He finally got the hang of it by the end of our ride once he figured out I was going to let him canter eventually, but we had a couple of go-rounds starting out.

I made him trot each fence the first time "because I said so, that's why." We went over the blue vertical first. He started doing his little prance-y "I want to canterrrrr!" trot up to it and sucking back, so I jabbed him once with my spurs and he rocketed over from a full stride out. I assumed a rather defensive position and cursed him out as we went sailing over before landing suprisingly coordinated.

yaaahhhhhh!

I made him trot it once more just to make a point of it before letting him canter it a few times. Punk. The other two jumps went off without fuss and I started putting a few of them together. Finally, I made up a little course which was slightly difficult with only three jumps, but I didn't feel like hauling anything else out. As soon as I went over the first jump, I loudly exclaimed, "Well, shit. I just forgot my own made up course!"

So I made it up again on the fly and Bobby and I played with all the jumps from every direction and angle, picking and choosing as we went and just having fun with it. Bobby's ears were locked forward and he was cruising around like, "Just show me where to go next and I'll do it!"

I'm finally starting to trust him jumping in the arena and we're getting our groove on together. The best way to ride him, I'm learning, is to make a point of getting a really good canter and then once we turn towards a jump, if the canter is good, just sit still and let him roll. If he needs a little whoa or a little go, I can do a tiny correction a few strides out, but other than that I need to leave him alone. He gets too flustered when I try to micro-manage him. What a ground-breaking concept, right?

But today was awesome. We were both enjoying ourselves and having fun. I really felt like we were starting to flow instead of testing each other. I'm soo looking forward to Sunday!