It just doesn’t happen

TWO jump lessons in like 4 days- go us! yay! This Tuesday Oats was verrrry sluggish off the leg, and unlike Saturday, never really woke up and got that excited. Wish I could feed him his oats again..?! Maybe?? I was wishing I had my spurs though, haha even though I had to remove them on Saturday.

Old Oats in all his glory!

We worked over a small grid, and remember- grids are my nemesis, ha. Or, they used to be. Heck, any trot fence was on my hit list! It went quite well though, so I have zero complaints about last night. Maybe one- jumps look high to me. Jumping 2ft, where he literally JUST CANTERS over it, and I am geared up for the freaking Olympics! Hahahah. I hope my brain and eyes will adjust, because Oats literally does not care and I am hyperventilating and like woah…Here we go! And he’s like, eh…

Anyways, it does serve to remind me that he is the best little dude. Not excitable, not rushy, just goes and does it. Very workmanlike. I could use a *little* excitement for the jumps here Oaty! 😉

Oh and we did get to 2’3” oxer in the grid and it felt high! hahaha. Oh, time. Such a fickle thing.

Mr. Oats phones it in

So as I mentioned this week, mixed results…For the week.

And that trend kind of continued in my lesson last night. I had some high hopes after my very exciting ride on Wedneday (so much energy!!!) that sadly fell…flat.

So tired.

Oats was so blaahhhhhhh in my lesson, and kind of angry and pissy at me for using leg. His popping up and head-tossing came back into play, so we moved up to canter and warmed up over a small x-rail, to brighten his interest.

While he did play nice with me, there was a distinct lack of sparkle in his eyes, and he was performing very perfunctorily…He was phoning it in. This, by the way, did my leg no favours at the canter…it was swinging, kicking, oh man. This day, was NOT a day to do gridwork, haha.

A few things I can chalk near-comatose Oats up to: Our very exciting ride the day before, and him not getting his dinner (?!!!) until like 5 minutes before I came out–so I took him away from his hay, and he was kind of pissy and tired.

So, we managed with what we had on the day. It’s only fair to the horse, and I don’t want to push him when clearly, he is not having a great day. Honestly? I can tell the difference…So I know I’m not unecessarily ‘babying’ him, I’m trying to manage my expectations for the lesson, given the horse I have on the day.

We worked over small (2 ft) courses, and my ugly problem of NOT BEING STRAIGHT was kind of a big issue. I can’t seem to like, committ to fixing that problem?! Well, now I know what I am going to practice this weekend, that’s for darn sure. Oats cooperated, but *just* enough to get the job done. Fair enough, hahah. As soon as we finished one course, he would grind to a ‘barely trudging’ walk…

Our walk back up the hill was like the slowest crawl and when I went to turn off the lights for the alleyway, Oats like, stood stock-still not moving. Just…standing like a zombie. I had to physically pull him back to the barn. HA, poor baby.

In the cross-ties, he was falling asleep. Hm…Just not his day. That’s ok, last week was not my shining moment either. I guess both of us are entitled to having those.