Stuck

Rode Fawkes last night.  It was probably inevitable that it was going to be flat atrocious.  I haven't ridden in a week and my trainer called Monday to tell me just how amazingly awesome Fawkes had been for her while I was out of town.

So, it shouldn't be surprising that he spent the whole ride spooking and being an ass and I rode like crap, right?

Fat pony is fat! Not looking so bad here

On the plus side, as can be seen in the photo above and below, we are making some real progress getting him to step under himself with his right hind leg.

And then the resistance shows up.

I am trying to stay out of his face since we are all about self carriage and relaxation.  However, when we come off the rail to circle (someone was lunging at the other end of the ring) he immediately gets all stiff and resistant.  And strangely, while he is stepping under himself he is still trying to bulge against my right leg with his body.  However, all that is just stuff to work on.  It got really frustrating when the lunging horse had a wild moment and Fawkes just melted down.  Spooked halfway across the ring and then stood there staring

Scaredy cat

He never really came back to me.  Once lunging horse left and we tried to use the entire ring, and he just spooked and spooked at that end.  He never once ducked his shoulder and spun out so there is some improvement but he would come out of the safe corner onto the long side and immediately tense looking at the spooky corner.

There was a lot of this.  Tension much?

It sucks because I am supposed to stay out of his face but if I don't maintain a pretty good contact, he uses that opportunity to spin.  But if it the contact is too strong, it just adds to his tension.  I haven't figured out how to toe his very thin line so I default to the defensive ride and it annoys him.  We got a little bit of decent work to the left and then I got off.  I stripped his tack and he took off running and bucking like a crazy horse.  He has been in routine work so I imagine that was just him shaking off our crappy ride more than an actual need to run.

Happy to see him open up a little.  I think he looks positively fabulous here, we need more of these moments!

Anyways, this is why he is in training now so hopefully these kind of rides happen less frequently soon.  Trying hard to just focus on the positive for now.