Now THIS is the Pony I Bought!

Here is a picture of us taken last Friday before we left the “big” barn. This was before the lesson where we had to stop because Nico was ridiculously fast and difficult to control. Check out my mad braiding skills!

So I had been a little stressed out with Nico over the past couple of weeks. He was acting more and more forward and energetic and it was starting to concern me that maybe he was going to be too much horse for me. Part of the problem was that my trainer was really busy and we had trouble scheduling training rides, so she hadn’t ridden Nico in two weeks!

But when I got to the barn on Tuesday, my trainer said that she worked him fairly hard on Monday. He was quick and wanted to canter, so she just let him canter and canter. She wonders if maybe the last trainer cantered him a lot. But she said after cantering for awhile he settled down a lot and listened to her really well.

We had a lesson Tuesday afternoon and I could not believe how good my pony was. He was back to the nice quiet pony I bought last month. When I asked him to trot, he moved off without throwing his head in the air and bouncing along. He would get quick from time to time, but came back with a reasonable half-halt. Steering was majorly improved. We trotted serpentines and figure eights. He tracked along the rail without bulging or doing weird stuff.

When it was time to canter, my trainer hopped on and showed me how nicely he’s been cantering. I hadn’t slept in over 30 hours, so I decided to not canter on Tuesday. I almost fell down getting out of my car, so I think my balance was a little off The poor pony did not need to cart my floppy tired body around at the canter. When my trainer cantered him he looked like a broke pony! She did circles and he didn’t drop his shoulder in.

Then I got back on and trotted him a lot because he was starting to get wise about cantering at the end of a ride. He would get anxious to canter and then be ready to quit as soon as we were done cantering. I will take responsibility for reinforcing this pattern, so now I have to work to fix it. He settled after trotting for awhile, and was back to being a great pony within a few minutes. Then I got off again and took my saddle off so that I could cool him out bareback. He was super agreeable about standing at the mounting block for someone to get on him the FOURTH time in one lesson.

I went to the barn again on Wednesday and rode. Once again he was a really good boy. I was at the farm alone, which made me a little nervous, but everything went okay. One funny thing that happened, though, is that he moved completely laterally towards the inside when I asked him to canter one time. He moved so quick that I actually lost my balance and had to hang on! I guess all the work we’ve done to teach him to move off the leg is working! Haha.

Then I took him into the barn to untack and decided to not thoroughly groom him because it was raining and I knew that he was going to go roll in the mud as soon as I turned him loose. So I stood him where the crossties are and told him, “Stand,” and he did. I didn’t bother putting him in the crossties (the barn was closed, so don’t worry!) and he did not move his feet for the whole five minutes I spent untacking him and giving him a quick grooming. He would turn his head way around to see what I was doing, which was really cute. He’s such a cute baby!

We got his registration in the mail yesterday, and it turns out his birthday is April 3rd. So he just turned three last month. Good to know!

And I passed my second year of medical school! Now I just have the boards in June and I’m headed for third year rotations in the hospital!

~ by haffiegirl on May 9, 2008.