Oh mare...

I had forgotten how "fun" mares can be!! Ah but I love them.

A couple days ago I didn't have much time, so I decided to just stop by to groom Callie, as she is shedding in great gobs of hair! Holy moly!! Well, I just wandered out to the paddock with the shedding blade. All was going well until the other horses decided to mob me, and Callie started to get agitated as I was trying to get her to stand still but she wanted nothing to do with the other horses (she's bottom rung on the authority ladder). As I was trying to get hair off her bum she finally had enough and leapt away, letting out a not-so-well-aimed kick right at me!!! Oh. no. you. don't.

That landed her a prompt round pen session about who is alpha "mare" and I very clearly told her that kicking at me is NOT ok. She did pretty good by the end, but while she did show submission, it wasn't truly what I wanted, as she was still a little like "i don't have to" when I tried to get her to yield her hind-end. She did it, but not truly in willing submission. So, got a little authority thing to sort out and then I think we'll be golden. Just one of those little things that needs to be established with any horse.

Two days later I took her out for a ride, I lunged her first as this was the first time I had decided to ride her in the large outdoor arena, which is right next to a busy road and can be a LOT distracting for some horses. I put her on the lunge and she instantly flipped into an AHHHHH I'M IN TROUBLE FOR KICKING mode from the round pen  the other day, even though she had really settled by the end that day... silly mare. So I just let her do what she wanted, let her do her thing while I stood there patiently, she ran a bit, then settled down for me to ride her.

We worked a lot of transitions, I probably only rode her for 15 minutes, but I figured out pretty quick that her mind was in typical TB mode, busy busy busybusyBUSY. She was paying attention to anything and everything but me, and just felt very squirrely and not truly giving her back. So we did transitions, transitions, and more transitions. I don't think I went more than 20 meters in any one gait. walk-trot-walk-trot-walk-halt-walk-trot-canter-trot-walk-trot-walk-trot-canter-trot and so on. Her head was all over the place, so I focused on doing each transition from the leg and seat only and keeping her soft on the bit, instead of flinging her head. I finished up the ride with two great 20m canter circles, one is each direction, the last one she really relaxed, gave her back, and truly went on the bit. GOOD GIRL! I ended on that note :D

Haven't gotten out to ride her again since, I'm really hoping to do so today, we'll see *crosses fingers*. We finally got her cribbing collar adjusted so that she's not cribbing anymore, which makes me happy. And she's been moved to her own paddock so that she can have as much hay and goodies as she wants so she should really start to put on the lbs here soon.

I think that's all for now, as long as the wind isn't blowing a million miles and hour the weather is really gorgeous so far this year, thought I wouldn't mind a couple rain showers, it's going to be a very dry summer if we don't get some moisture soon.