Threat Assessment

I threatened to sell Ashke last night and buy a PRE. He dropped his head, got very sad and then was a much better horse after. He was being silly about the corner and slamming to a stop when we would canter by. Amanda positioned herself about 8m away and made us trot and canter in a 10m circle around her, attempting shoulder in, until he stopped staring at the stuff piled there and began paying attention to me.

Despite the scary corner shenanigans, Ashke did well. We worked on my geometry for the 15m circle, with me keeping him moving on the circle without losing his hind end. We worked on the 10m half circles with a change of bend in the middle. We did the half turn on the haunches several times.

Then we pulled out the drums and tried to work on the canter circles around them. Ashke was trying to blow through my half halt, so Amanda had us stop after the first one and back around the drum. When we moved to the second one, when I half halted him he stopped quickly, anticipating being asked to back up around the second one as well. He's too damn smart. Half my problem is getting him to wait until I ask for him to do something different. We were able to perform the drums fairly well, so I am no longer so worried about that.

Amanda agreed to help us work on the double slalom next Monday.


We will get him out on trail tomorrow, if this respiratory thing I suddenly have doesn't kill me first.

And if I can get to Dover to exchange my brand new helmet, since this is the second Ovation where the straps holding the helmet on my head are popping out of the foam.