All Gear, No Skill

There's another blog that has that name, but I'm thinking that I should use that one for my blog title now. Lol, got the new bridle, new bit, new saddle pad, and new saddle out on Saturday. Tacked up Ms. Denali and lunged her for a bit. Our trainer worked with us for a little bit on the proper way of doing it. It's been a while since I've worked Ms. D on the ground and I know that I need to do a lot more of it.

When we were finished I put her back into her paddock and started to clean my tack. During this time Ms. Ophelia was getting wormed. She broke loose and took off running around the property. Ms. Denali got all excited and fell AGAIN. Ugh. She is a walking disaster.

Today I went out to do some light lunging and to see how she was doing. As I was tacking her up, I stretched out her legs. She reached down, started nussling my hair, and then sighed. It was so sweet. She was super lovey today.

We went to work. She's still off on her right hind, when we were lunging to the right she was definitely off on it, but there was no heat or swelling. After a little time she seemed to loosen up and was doing better. I'm assuming falling down isn't helping her heal, whatever is wrong with her. She likes stressing me out.

After warming her up for a while, I asked our trainer to "hold her" so I could try riding her. I haven't ridden her in a while, and wanted to see how the saddle felt for me. Of course she spooked! What the hell! Here's my logic, you tell me what you think:

She knows I'm not confident and she doesn't feel safe when I'm on her back. When something happens she feels responsible and needs to react. Almost like she needs to save us, because she doesn't trust that I will save her. I don't honestly think she does it to be evasive. She's not that kind of horse, if that makes sense. What do you think?

I'm going to do a lot more ground work with her in the coming weeks. I want her to realize that she can trust me. After our ride I hoped off of her and she FREAKED! I got off of her the way I get off of all horses. So of course after her little 'episode' I had to get back up on her to get off again. I asked her to walk on then 'emergency dismounted' She really freaked out and about ran over my trainer. She does NOT like me coming off her back. I think it's a "flash back" to me coming off of her. So then it was back to ground work. We put things on her back and trotted her so it would fall off. She did okay with that. Then I took her saddle off and she jumped at that, so then my trainer had me put it on and take it off at least 20 times until she stood still. My arms hurt! She calmed down and went back to thinking everything was fine.

Ophie's mom brought her super amazing, wonder camera to the barn and we had a photo shot. We groomed the girls up beautiful and took them out to the grass field to graze and take pictures. We had Ophie's mom's boyfriend chasing them to get them to run for the photos. We didn't tell him that her camera memory was full, and let him continue to chase them. It was hilarious. I'll post some of those pictures when I get them. I also need to get her permission.

Sorry this is a kind of random blog. I have a million things to think about and wanted to at least put down part of my weekend. I'll try to organize my thoughts and make a better blog this week.