Simple Goals

There are some days that the goals just need to be simple.

The other day was an example of that.

Chili was not especially hot, but silly.  The mounting block was apparently terrifying so she spent way longer than necessary arching her neck and snorting and blowing at it.  Seriously horse.

She is not an especially spooking horse, so I have no idea what that was about.  I had set up some basic cavaletti in the center of the ring, but I had to reduce my goals down to doing circles without a leaping lizard-squirrel maneuver.

Well simply going back to basics didn't help either.  I finally picked up the whip and after a short discussion on that forward is an option and putting on some big girl pants, Chili finally realized that yes, she could go in a circle without being a dip.

That's the hard thing I have sometimes is knowing when a horse's behavior is simply inexperience or fear or just being a squirrel. 

In this case, it was squirrel.  With the application of some forward and just carrying the whip, I was able to salvage our ride.



I was trying out the above app.  I apologize for the bright colors, but it's kind of fun! 

At the end, I cooled down with taking another baseline value for the 2Pointober Contest 
I started with a baseline of 02:36.09 and made it all the way to 04:12.31.  

Hurray for simple goals!