Don't Give Him an Inch

 I didn't really do much horse-wise this weekend. I rode Cisco on Friday night - let me correct that - I tried to ride Cisco on Friday night and gave up after 25 minutes.

The arena was booked for a clinic all weekend. On Friday and Saturday it wasn't available until late evening. On Friday I had enough energy to make it happen so I arrived at the barn at about 7:45pm and hopped on around 8:30.

This was Cisco's first time in the arena by himself for a while, so I wasn't anticipating having my best ride ever, despite putting on the magical soundproof ear bonnet. To add extra stress to my horse, the arena lights were turned off when I took him in and the arena was pretty well black. 

Last time this happened, Cisco stared into the dark and was convinced he saw death down in the depths of the arena. This time, he wasn't too concerned. I'll give the credit to the bonnet yet again. 

The warm-up walk was fine. He was a bit looky in the end, but went into the corners happily enough.

The trot though. Ugh.

I think he was just a wee bit too full of himself to be able to settle while by himself in the ring. It wasn't that he was spooky, he just kept dropping his shoulder towards the gate on every single turn we made, everywhere in the ring. He even did it on a 15 m circle right in front of the gate. Super annoying.

I schooled it for about 15 minutes - it got mostly better, but give an inch and he would take a foot every time. 

It was late, there was no one around, I was annoyed. I hopped off and stripped his tack and sent him out for a run.

There were some bucks and leaps, so maybe that was what he needed. I'm still believing in the magical properties of the bonnet, as in the past this would have been a much worse ride. He didn't actually have any scoot-spooks, and had some short-lived moments of reaching forward for contact instead of just giraffe-ing the whole time. 

I might have purchased something to make Cisco work a little harder. More info to come!