...and Kim seriously wonders why she does greenies anymore. Boo. Time for a mini-rant - I'm so sick and tired of doing the greenie thing.
Oliver so badly needs to develop a work ethic. Sitting around on his little farm in SC for six years of his life has taught him to be a first-class Pasture Puff. When he first got to the farm, work was interesting because it was "new". It's no longer "new" anymore - Ollie thinks it's work with a Capital W. For some reason, he's started to trot Full Speed Ahead when we're starting out, which for some other reason really annoyed me tonight. It may have been because it was incredibly hot and sticky - note to self: when it's hot, I'm irritable. Probably not the best mood to ride in, but I think we ended on a fairly good note and it was productive, because I wasn't about to take any more sh*t from him and excuse his behaviour due to green-ness. Oliver also thought that bracing against the bit and running around like a demented giraffe was tons of fun and a way to get out of work - we did lots of circles and moving off the inside leg into the outside rein until he quit dorking around and started to settle.
The good thing about tonight's icky, sticky ride was that I discovered that if I actually sit quietly and keep myself together in the canter transition, he picks up the correct lead. Granted, he does his best camel impressing with his head scrambling into it, with haunches first swinging one way and then swinging the other, but keeping him straight into the transition is the key to getting the correct lead. Well, keeping him straight is the answer for everything, but it really hit home today as I contorted my body like a Chinese Circus acrobat trying to get the correct lead, when just sitting there and not giving up on the straightness did the trick.
Horses can be so humbling.
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