Magic Mask

After two days of unnecessary dramatics, we headed out to our lesson last week. It was further unnecessary dramatics. We could not ask for one single thing without him losing his shit so he finally got stuffed on a circle in the canter where he went around with zero contact and zero input for thirty minutes straight which is where we quit. Frustrating to say the least. 

We did a sidesaddle clinic Saturday, he had Sunday off, and then Monday we went back to work...with the Fenwick Equestrian LT mask back in place. The thing really is voodoo magic. He still gets tense, and he can still throw some dramatics, but he lets me into his brain so we can work through it. 

He still has this hang up about halting on the bit and standing still without wanting to fling himself around which I have zero idea how to address because there's literally no reason for it. But whatever, other things to work on. 

On Tuesday he also thought about not bending right whatsoever and started getting worked up about it until I realized when he bent right he could see the whip in my right hand which wigged him out. As soon as I put it in my outside hand, we had bend again. Whatever, I can work with that.

On Wednesday we were supposed to have a rescheduled lesson where I was excited about the prospect of doing test riding because I think we're going to aim for Houghton's second recognized show to get back in the ring. Instead I came down with a horrible stomach bug that had me puking my guts up so I obviously cancelled. 

Today we shifted focus to jumps to prepare for Saturday's hunter show. I put everything up to 2'6" and he was not at all impressed. He ran at them with his head in the air until I switched his eggbutt to the waterford. He did put his head down then, but he was either steeplechasing them or jumping over his shoulder, no in between. The plus side is I don't move an inch in the saddle because he's not lifting his body over them whatsoever. The downside is, that's not the way we're going to jump, sir. No fucking thank you. So I scratched the hunter show and this weekend we're going to do some big oxer grid work.