Caution: Drama Llama Crossing

What a long, shitacular week this has been thus far. Monday was a total fucking wash as I spent all day wandering around the house randomly crying, and I woke up Tuesday feeling like death. I felt progressively better as the morning went on and the meds kicked in so I decided to suck it up and go to the barn. On my way there, I got a speeding ticket. Awesome.

For my ride, I set up a one stride to a two stride (or vice versa), and also set up a vertical with the big barrels under it on the diagnol.

what we ended with.

Bobby went through the line of xrails fine both ways. He started to get a little bull-headed as we progressed, so I moved on to the barrels. He was very polite the first two times, and then he got frazzled when I made him take the time to canter on the correct lead both in front and behind. Then he was not at all polite and I made him trot it. That went well so we tried the canter again. Nope. We turned in towards it and he started doing his canter in place "I'm about to freak the fuck out" routine. Sigh. Really, dude? I let him walk around on the buckle for a few minutes to decompress before trying it at the trot again. He did it fine, so I gave him big pats and ignored it for the rest of the ride.

Now, of course, he was having attitude issues and just waiting for an excuse for a temper tantrum. He was worrying the bit, curling under, and being a general ass. This is exactly why he jumps in an elevator. I would not be able to detach his face from his chest without it. He was being incredibly rude approaching the line, so I made him canter a circle over the striped X a few times to unlock him from the next jump. That settled him some, but when I let him continue on, he obliterated the next two Xs because he wanted to run right through it.

I was hoping we'd be able to get away with working over smaller fences this winter because the indoor is small, but Bobby made it very clear he still has zero respect for anything under 2'6. I knocked the middle jump up to 2'9, kicked the one stride out from 18' to 21', and brought him around yet again. Hmph. What a nice, polite horse. We did it a couple more times and ended there.

He's so pleasant over "bigger" jumps (mostly), and I guess there's no reason for him to be jumping under 2'6, but I'd really like a polite, calm, steady jumping horse no matter the height. He needs to get over himself.

admiring his lady friends.

He was pretty wet, though not warm, when we were done, so I threw his cooler on and sat on a stool in his stall while he dried. The ride must have taken a lot out of him because he abandoned his hay and mosied over to drop his head in my lap and take a snooze. Thanks for the drool spot, Robert. You wish your horse was as classy as mine.

Today was a dressage ride. BM asked how he was doing as we walked out of the barn and I foolishly told her was being a gem on the flat, but a maniac over jumps. She, of course, laughed and said that was hard to imagine. That's the general response I get when I tell people Bobby's difficult to jump. He's such a dope on the ground, even I  don't expect him to be such a tool. But he is. Ohhh, he is.

Today, he felt like being an asshole on the flat, too! Yay!

I threw a pole at X to do circles over and got on. Immediately, I could tell today was going to be a trying ride. He was so fucking lazy. And when he wasn't being lazy, he was being a giraffe. A forward canter got him stepping out a bit, but then he had to have a complete melt down about cantering over the pole. He'd either jump it or step on it. Going to the left, he'd land go over and instantly swap behind. (Yesterday, he was being a brat about swapping to the right.) If he was cantering down the longside or on a circle that wasn't over the pole, he was fine. Whatever, Bobby.

We had a long walk mental break, and picked up the trot again. Well, now he thought we were going to canter so he had to suck back and revert to late winter/early spring Bobby by dropping his back and sticking his face in the air.

AWESOME, BOBBY. I AM HAVING SUCH A NICE RIDE.

Despite feeling like beating his head against the wall, I took many (many) deep breaths and calmly worked through it. Guess what, Bobby? I can carry my hands wherever I please. You have to deal with it. Guess what, Bobby? I'll release the pressure on your giant asshole head if you give me even the slightest inkling you'll lower it.

For an hour ride, which was way longer than I wanted, we walked for probably forty minutes. He overreacted to every little correction or request. We finally finished with a sort of forward trot. On the plus side, his leg yields are installed. This was one of the things he had a temper tantrum about. He got them figured out, so any time we turned down the quarterline, he wanted to do one. I didn't. Sometimes I wanted to work on going straight off the rail. Oh my God, I was clearly trying to kill him.

SUCH. A. DRAMA. QUEEN.

also, his feet are looking fabulous.

Friday, I'm going to set up some bounces. We'll keep working through grids, we'll do work with ground poles, and we'll keep working hard on our dressage to get him more adjustable and balanced over fences. Fingers crossed his friggin' ulcer meds get here one of these days. Drama Llama needs to be medicated!