It has been a lovely day here in Alberta.  Not too hot, not too muggy, sun is  shining... horse was near the gate instead of a quarter mile out in the field...

Havoc went out on the grass for a couple hours.  We have a grass paddock that we can turn our horses onto, so I take advantage of it whenever I can.  The kid just will NOT gain weight.  He's doing his best to get to 17hh, he really shouldn't work so hard at it.

But, I digress.  Mo has been awesome these days.  I rode her Thursday and it was totally awesome, we even played with some canter half pass... now let us not think it was show grade, but for a stubby legged little thing, it was awesome!  Today started out nicely enough, we went for a walk on the track with some others to warm up.  One of the other horses was acting up, so he went the other way schooling.  Mo, however, was delightful, marching along with her head down.

Back to the arena for some work.  Walk and trot was lovely, although I should have known something was up when she didn't really want to leg yield back to the track to the right.  I figured we'd start canter to the right since it's often her best side, and I wanted to do some counter canter work.  Holy crap!  What an insolent, nasty stinky girl!  I hate those moments when you have to decide what exactly you are going to have to do here to bring everything around to where you can end on a good note.

Tried walking, trotting, being relaxed, try again.... nope.  Other direction?  Yeah, that's not so bad, we can do that ... set up the canter to the right so that it's on the rail, small circle, good, STOP!  And I took her back to the track which she marched along with her head lower that her withers for the most part, I'll chalk that up as a win.  Ideal, no, but we maintained a good relationship, no one freaked out, we ended on something I could reward her for.

Now the boy who went schooling the other way on the track was out there awhile.  He hadn't been all that good in the ring either, although some of his work was good.  So when they returned I asked his rider if they'd gotten through it.  Well, not really.  So, I said I think even Steffen Peters has bad days, move on.  She needed that sort of perspective.

Too often I think we forget that it's ONE day, ONE ride, there will be more.  Some days you are the bird, some days you are the statue.  I know for my horse, if you were to break trust with her, it's going to take one hell of a long time to get it back, so I've learned to find something good, stop the madness.  Tomorrow is a new day.  Thank you to all my horses for teaching me each day.

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