When she was good she was very, very good.......

...And when she bad she was horrid..... an absolute minx!!

Went to work Bally on Wednesday evening and the school was booked solid so I thought I'd work her out in the hay field. All well and good, she was a little on her toes - a bit feisty and not really focussed...
Well any hint of focus went out of the window as Holly and Button headed out on a hack off down the path at the side of where we were working...oh dear!! B was going with them same as she had the night before...well no she wasn't, but she seemed to think she could and got just a little bit frustrated when I wouldn't let her.

When I say a little - we had an attempt to take off across the field, followed by leapy, bucking head shaking and general frustrated stroppiness as I firmly held my ground.
B really doesn't do heavy handed, she's way too sensitive and new to the feel of contact on her mouth (reins are still attached via the headcollar rings on to the bit) so I had to balance taking a hold to keep her with me and releasing the second I had any kind of response down the rein and get her on a circle ASAP :-o
So we had a minute or two of legs everywhere whizzing with B really diving onto the reins and trying to lean into the bit and I just kept myself still and calm and repeated asking her verbally and with body and rein cues to slow down, calm down and listen.

Eventually started to get some sense and managed a bit of nice big long lining shapes...until Chris & his daughter Rosie came out from behind the hedge and rode along the edge of the field on their horses...argh!!!!
Cue another take off in their direction and a repeat of the plunging and a leaping accompanied by head throwing when I stopped and blocked her...so back onto a circle and lots of G & R play with the reins.

It worked thank goodness and pretty soon I was able to get some really nice longreining in walk, doing lots and lots of changes of direction and figure of 8s to keep her brain as busy as I could!

Bally was showing me that she needed to stretch down to release the tension she'd developed by bracing, so I encouraged nice soft stretches down in walk and halt, then adding a slight bend to the side in the stretch - B liked this, think it felt good!

Finished on that good note!

Well I learnt that B needs a lot more work on keeping her focus on the task in hand in the face of distraction and I need to do a lot more close in hand work on getting a calm happy acceptance of a contact from B - I'm not liking the diving onto it I was getting from her.

Chatted to Dawn (YO) about how it had been going and she said she could tell that I really love the challenge of working with youngsters - which I do, it's such a bloody great buzz when it all comes together , knowing that it could all go so horribly wrong if you don't get the right approach...so - slow, calm, steady, sensitivity and conviction is what I'm aiming for...oh and a good sense of humour helps lol!!

Which brings me on to tonight :-)

Bally came in really happy after giving me a huge neigh hello when I came round the corner.
She was chilled but alert and on the right side of cheeky - just exuding a good feeling!

Gave her a nice brush and popped her lunge cavesson & bridle on - B has only had the cavesson on a couple of times and isn't too keen on the feeling of having jangly stuff on her nose yet...well her happy go lucky mood seemed a good basis to work from, so I figured we could have a change of tack and concentrate on calm acceptance of the bit and noseband.

Once we got in the school I just walked around with B on a loose lead - she had a couple of little scoot moments accompanied by chucking her head about when she felt the pressure on her nose from the noseband, but as she realised it was her putting pressure on herself this stopped..clever girly.

I put out three blocks in a circle and two individual poles in the top corners of the school and just quietly attached the reins and long lined her around and about and over, again working on the fact she had to concentrate and listen to what I was asking and not be distracted. Of course we had a few moments of steering failure when I wasn't clear or quick enough in my directions but all in all I was really chuffed as B was trying so hard - a marked difference from Wednesday night *YAY*

Then just popped her on one rein and did a couple of minutes each way on the lunge - I was after a good slow steady walk with B going exactly where I wanted her and on as light a contact as possible...and got it!!

I let her off to have a good stretch and had a very quick walk around the blocks and over the poles loose, I love doing that with her - think she gets chuffed that she's so clever too!

Great way to end the week :-)