Practice Hopefully Makes Perfect (Someday, I Hope)

Cisco has decided that he wants to be a trail horse and schooling is for chumps. 

Not a chump.

Sigh.

On Sunday I took him over to the arena to use the mounting block to get on. From there I was going to ride outside, so I left the gate open. I got on (the block is right next to the gate) and turned Cisco away from the gate so I could get myself organized before heading out. He threatened a crowhop, which I growled at him for. Then we had to stay inside for a bit so that he realized that I got to steer him and decide when we would leave.

We went for a walk around the yard for our warm-up. He was a little high headed, but he usually is for the first bit of every ride. We then returned to the field where I planned to do the rest of the ride. 

But I ran into an issue. Damn gopher holes. There were a whole bunch of new ones, big ones, and because the grass was recently mown, I couldn't see them until we were right in front of them. I don't like that. 

We headed into the dressage court. In the summer they set up a simple dressage ring on the grass. There might still be gopher holes to dodge, but it's easy to remember where they are. 

At the moment there are only a couple of holes, and they aren't big or on the track, so I decided to stay in there. And got my ass handed to me to show me all our problems. 

So many problems.

Despite it being the first actual hot day of the year, Cisco had far more go than I was hoping. And at this point in his riding career, more go means all the old problems that we might have mostly eliminated come right back.

Our corners sucked. Our straightness sucked. Our bending sucked. Our pace sucked. Our right lead canter was decent, but the steering sucked.

Everything got slightly better after 30 minutes of work. But very, very slightly.

Oh well. The only way you get better at things is practice. Over and over and over again.