I probably could have gone into far more detail in yeaterday's post and even given more insight but I chose not to. I truly want to move on. I don't see the point of dissecting a bad show to pieces when we have had tons of good shows. Amazing shows. What I do want to do is take what I learned and fix it.
What did I learn? My mare can jump 1.20m with room to spare. I also learned she isn't confident enough yet at that height to jump anyway when something is spooky. At the lower heights she was confident enough to way over jump the scary liverpool.
So how do I fix this? I give her confidence. If you guessed that every one of my jumps at home will likely have a liverpool or liverpoolish thing under it you are correct. Will I drill her? No. I will simply expose her to lots of things so they aren't a big deal and then we will practice them at the bigger heights. Will she stop again at a show? Possibly. At our next show (which is in May) I will ride her like she might stop. If I am confident she will learn to be too. And that's it. We won't dwell.
She finally will take a treat from me again. Like I said yesterday we are both beat up emotionally. It's been a long time since I've had to play the bad guy with her. I haven't needed to and I got too comfortable.
Poppy will have part of this week off so we can both have a break and then we will get back at it. In the meantime baby has a clinic to get ready for!
I like positive in this post, even thru the sadness. Don't dwell, great motto.
ReplyDeleteYou've got this. You have a plan and Poppy is a really cool horse. :-) Love your attitude.
ReplyDeleteSolid Plan.
ReplyDeletegreat takeaways - and glad Poppy is starting to relax a little bit. onward and upward!
ReplyDeleteYou've got this.
ReplyDeleteYou'll bounce back. Confidence is tricky and I think sometimes it's easy to forget that our horses can be wigged out from a larger height too... I know I forget that often!
ReplyDeleteOne of my good friends has a mare who sounds a little bit like Poppy -- this mare needs a rider to give her confidence sometimes. Like you said, you know Poppy can do it and now you just have to convince her :-)
ReplyDeleteYou got this girl!!
ReplyDeleteIt'll all come together in no time - you've got this girl. I hope you have a blast at the clinic with Luxxx ☺
ReplyDelete