The mare is, indeed, a mare

 Ok, so let me start off by staying that: 1) I have no media.  Boy at home mopping = no media; and 2) I kill all electronics.  We have a new microphone system, which we thought would be fantastic for the screaming winds.  It was pretty good (lots of wind noise) but about 3/4 of the way into my lesson, I shorted it out. Worked fine when Marcea was holding it, but as soon as I put the battery pack in my pocket or clipped it to my vest, it turned off.  Yeah, I'm good like that.

So, as I alluded to earlier, this was a lesson in patience.  Violet was not feeling it.  She was doing everything she could to not listen.  Of course, she had lots of other things to pay attention to, including but not limited to: new horses on the property (lots of them), a Leslie Law clinic in the jumping ring, 25 mph winds, and 40 degree temps.  To combat that, we basically went directly to work at the walk to warm up.  This meant leg yielding and circles.  Anything to get her to pay attention to me, not the horses jumping in the jumping ring. She really wasn't horrible, but was just being a girl.

When we moved on to the trot, we actually had some pretty good lateral work.  She spooked a bit at the ring boards that were stacked next to one end of the ring, but I actually counterbent her towards them to give her a look and then brought her back into the center going around the corner, which seemed to work pretty well.  Even more cool was that I did that myself without being told, and was complimented on it.  I guess I'm finally building up some instinct for dealing with her silliness.  She had only been going past those boards in that ring for a week.

The issues really popped up when we went to canter.  We were trying a new approach, where I was to go forward at the canter if she gave me any grief.  To the left, she was actually quite good.  Push her into the canter, carry the hands, and she relaxes into the bridle and gave me some really nice balanced canter.  To the right, she likes to hop into it.  I would say it's a buck and a scoot, but it really isn't a buck, just a series of hops.  So a hop and a scoot.  But if I pushed her into it, she gave up on that after a could of strides and gave some nice canter there, too.  But she did it every...single...time to the right.

After we did the left and the right, we ran into an issue.  To the right, I couldn't get her to trot.  I could get her to trot about 3 steps, then she would pop back into canter as soon as I put any leg on her to get her to push into the trot.  At first, Marcea said to just let her keep cantering, then.  If she doesn't want to listen, she can work harder, and we can work some of that out of her.  Yeah...not today, she said.  Finally we just had to halt.  Get her back at the halt and let her think a minute.  She did halt for a few seconds.  And then she stuck her nose straight up in the air and started backing up.  I had to kick her to get her to go forward.

After that, she decided she was just done.  You could pretty much hear her saying "screw you, you want me to react to leg, how about this shit!" as she halfpassed her way around a circle.  We did get some more canter out of her as we worked through her little snit.  And then we got some good trot, and at the end a beautiful leg yield from the center line when I was changing direction through a tear-drop loop.

The issue with Violet is that she is a girl who so wants to please.  And she wants you to be clear and concise with how you ask.  And she is a girl.  I am not always clear and concise.  Her little brain goes into overload. And she is a girl.  Oh my god, is she a girl.

Anyway, a few takeaways from this weekend's lesson:

• Ride horse from back to front.  Need to figure out how to ride the whole horse.  
• If the girl is distracted, do lateral work. 
• When she gets bouncy up down arguing, go forward.  
• If forward is what she wants to do, stop and let her take a break, then go forward.  
• If she gets nasty at the canter, go forward.  
• Apparently, forward is always the answer.  
• If she gives a perfect canter depart, don't shoot her forward.  
• To keep forward at the canter moooove the bit and use leg with the lead.

You will never hear me say that I had a bad lesson.  Any time I get the opportunity to get on and ride is an opportunity to learn, and that is what I am paying for.  So there are no bad lessons.  Actually, the tougher lessons are usually the ones I learn the most in.  That being said, this was not a fun lesson.  Insightful, but not fun.  Especially when I get to ride so infrequently right now.  But it is all laying the groundwork, and I can say that I wasn't scared.  There was a time not too long ago when I would have been afraid of how Vi would react with all that going on, and I was not scared.  I was determined that she was going to listen to me and that we were not going to play silly games the few times I get to ride.  Marcy even noticed and commented on it.  

This coming weekend is Rocking Horse Winter I where I will, again, be jump judging on Saturday.  Not sure if I'm going to be able to ride at all.  It all depends on when I get done judging.