Time for Trailer Practice

Random pictures today, sorry for the lack of media!

This empty room is becoming the man cave
he even had his rawhide in there for awhile

My plan for Sunday was to take it a little easier from a dressage work perspective and to work Katai outside and lunge her. However, it ended up being a cold dreary and windy day so Katai was pretty amped up and I decided to ride instead.

My parent's barn has been steadily falling down over the past few years

 I had a great, if short, ride and the resident trainer (not Jane but the person who rides her young horse) was there and riding one of the training horses so it was great practice for Katai. At the last barn there were routinely other horses in the arena with us but here there aren’t so she was a little excited about it. I was able to keep her attention though with my new riding skills and she was really a good girl and didn’t have any tantrums to speak of.

You can still see a cross tie hanging there :)

Then Monday ended up being beautifully warm and sunny with temperatures in the upper 50s. It was SO NICE!! I decided to use it to my advantage and took Katai for a walk around the trailers. It’s pretty muddy out and the trailer wasn’t hooked up or in a particularly good place so I didn’t even open the door the full way, just got Katai walking around outside.

 We had some hairy moments.

Katai is much fitter than she was so between the passage, rearing, and (this is new) striking out it was like trying to handle a very fuzzy white dragon but I was really proud of how I handled it. I was able to stay really calm and soft and gentle with her but was very firm about keeping her out of my space and not letting her just barge ahead. We had a couple of discussions but they were “quieter” than they would have been in the past. I also stuck with it longer and walked her around a few times and stuck it out by the trailers for a while. We ended with a pony that was stilled amped but quieter and listening.

My amazing fellow boarder printed out this
calendar and marked the shows she's thinking about on it!

Frankly, it’s the first time she’s been out there since December so I don’t blame her for being feisty about it. My goal for the next month or so is just to get her lots of exposure to the outdoors as well as to the trailer. Before I even start working on loading again I want her to be calm near the back of the trailer with the doors open as normally that’s been getting her so freaked out that even thinking about trying to get her loaded is silly. If we can at least get there then I’m not as worried about actually getting her loaded.