We had booked to go XC schooling with 2 friends one Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago and in preparation I spent an hour Saturday afternoon practicing loading him on the trailer as he has been a bit difficult about it again the last few times. We have this pattern where I do some loading practice and he is then fine loading for about 5/6 journeys, he then starts to get a bit silly again and not want to load. He doesn't do anything naughty he just plants at the bottom of the ramp and will load only when he is ready, unless you try to force him at which point he will fight you to the ends of the earth! Well on the Saturday he did as expected and got to the bottom of the ramp and stopped dead refusing to move despite the offer of a bucket of feed, apples, carrots and a haynet! I put some apple and carrots on the ramp to entice him and he got as far as putting his front feet on then stopped again! After 15mins or so he decided it was ok and on he went, there was no stress, no rearing and he had his tea on the trailer then unloaded and loaded again several times before being turned back out having had no negative experience at all. I stupidly expected him to then load the next day but no, he planted again. The difference this time was we were on a schedule and needed to get going so after a few minutes the other girls decided to get lunge lines and try to coax him in, I should have said no, I knew full well it wouldn't work but I let them try and this resulted in stubborn rearing, kicking and lunging, he was being totally evil so after a few minutes I just told them to go without us before someone got hurt. I was gutted as I knew we would have both loved it and have no idea when we might be able to go again, but there was no point in continuing like that, we needed time and didn't have it. If we had carried on we would all have missed out. I was really annoyed with Jack but also really angry with myself for getting in that position, I know forcing him is never going to work and just winds him up!! Feeling upset and angry I put him away for a few minutes and let us both calm down. Once the others had got on their way I asked one of the other liveries to hook my trailer up onto their car and carried on trying to load on our own, it took me a while as Jack was now in complete stubborn mule mode but eventually I got him loaded, too late to go but he was on the trailer at least! I loaded him over and over again until he was trotting in with me. After that I jumped him at home and he was brilliant, bloody animal, he would have had so much fun cross country! When he allows you to channel his energies into working with you instead of against you he is really quite super! So despite the day being very disappointing we did finish on a good note.
Since then I've decided Jack has got to tow the line a bit more, no more letting him get away with doing what he wants how he wants, even just a little bit or to make life easier, he has got to do things as and when I say and how I say. He is not a generous horse and give him a millimeter and he will take a mile so I am being more disciplined with him and on his case and if he doesn't do things how I have asked, either ridden or handling, then he is corrected straight away and made to do it how I wanted. It seems to have had the desired affect as he has gone really nicely since doing some beautiful work and hacking much better without so much spookiness, he's also loaded fine since!
I set up a jumping exercise last week making a double but adding a fence each side of the 2nd part so you could either jump straight or turn left or right after the first fence to jump the 2nd part. I also made the middle 2nd fence a skinny triple brush, at 90cm it was a decent fence. He warmed up nicely then jumped through and over the skinny perfectly first time, no hesitation or attempt to duck out! I was really pleased with him and managed to capture his efforts on camera too, watching the video back he looks really smart and confident with his ears pricked as he locks onto the fence. I never imagined jumping him would be some much fun and how much easier it would get after his back surgery, he really is a different horse and seems to now really enjoy jumping.
His flat work has also come on again in recent weeks, he is working in a higher frame, staying more relaxed and supple and using his back end more and more.
We have recently moved back onto our summer grazing so have had to start bringing in during the day again to stop him getting too porky, I think this is helping too as it seems to give him more energy. The new food I am feeding, Dengie Alfa-A lite and top spec lite balancer are suiting him and his weight has remained pretty much as it was coming out of Winter, he looks fit and healthy and his topline is looking stronger again now.
We have even managed to do a little bit of faster work this last week or so as the ground is drying out and he is fit and able.
All in all despite him disgracing himself over loading we have had a pretty good few weeks with much more ups than downs.
Over the next few weeks we have dentist, physio and farrier booked in and are hoping to get to some of the local shows that we can hack to and do some online Dressage.
Thanks for reading :)
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