The Riding/Training - Evergreen Clinic Day One

The Evergreen Clinic

The weather was damp and cooling off when I left home Saturday morning.  The horses had stayed clean and were still in their stalls when I arrived.  The clinic had begun.  I decided to ride Elvis first, as he was more likely to roll in the mud once he was outside and he is much harder to clean off. 

He looks a little afraid of what might happen next in the picture above, taken just before we went up to the arena.  This was his first time in polo wraps, first time in a half blanket, second time in a wash bay, first time in a clinic.  So he was doing alright, I'd say!  It had been trying to snow on and off for hours, but now it was really going to come down in earnest, of course. 
Our ride went really well, I thought.  We did walk and trot work and I got some good instructions on how to negotiate his taking some contact.  He was a bit alarmed when hard popcorn snow started to hit the roof of the arena and make a weird sound.  Then the P.A. system went on and it was really hard for him to understand.  The clinician was very patient with him, talking continuously to get him used to the sound of  her voice, but every time we went by a different speaker (There were six or eight around the periphery, up at the ceiling level.) the sound would be slightly different and he just couldn't relax around it.  So we ended there and I thought he did a nice job of trying to accept all this new information and a new way of being ridden with patience and grace.  I had not really tried to get him to accept contact before this day.  I put his turnout sheet on him and put him outside, leaving the cleaning for tomorrow. 

My ride on Gus was at 4:15.  He had been out in the snow for several hours by then in his turnout sheet.  He had the good sense to stay under the shed roof and not roll, however, so he was clean and ready to go. 

 I walked him up to the arena with his cooler over his tack and the snow coming down at a pretty good clip.  It wasn't sticking to the ground much because the ground was still so warm.  Our ride went pretty well.  He was tighter and less relaxed and willing than he had been the day before, but he was still better than he had been in previous clinics and I was feeling pretty good about everything until the moment came when we were asked for a rein back.  Now, we had been practicing these at home, because he had gotten phenominally bad at them for reasons that I do not understand.  At home, he had been doing them quite nicely.  But not on this day!  He planted his feet and swung his head around and was not going to do it!  The clinician even tried to back him up from the ground and I thought he was going to step on her.  It was bad.  When I got off she asked me to back him up from the ground, and he was willing to comply with that.  I have my suspicions about what happened, but will have to add that at a later time.

Back down to the barn in the snow we went with the agreement that I would ride him first tomorrow.

Warm blankets under turnout sheets, grain, cookies and hay all around, and then I was off to shower.