Magical Thinking Cap

I had a birthday recently and hubs (with assistance from Lindsey and Alyssa) got me a beautiful horse tiara. Since I put it on (one of) our bridles, I have had only amazing and magical rides with Courage.  

You doubt?

This was ride #1.

It was amazing. And magical. There's even video.

Then I had another ride! (No video, but omg. We turned right. We turned left. It moved me, Bob.)

let's look at another pic from day one

So that's pretty great. I really, really don't like to drill Courage on the dressage and after two solid days, it was time to mix things up. I pulled him out Monday morning and we decided to tackle something we're historically ALWAYS bad at:

dun dun dun

TROT POLES

For real. The reason I quit jumping this horse is that he sees an obstacle, his whole body goes tight(er than it already was) and he launches at it. It's bad. It's that scary horse you avert your eyes from at the show type stuff. So when people were like "do trot poles to loosen his topline", I was like:

fo real

Trot poles are a great idea. FOR OTHER PEOPLE.

Anyways. We reattempted trot poles, but now with our magical sparkly thinking cap. Well ok first we wamred up on the lunge:

just needed an excuse to share this shot

 Then we started with one trot pole and worked our way up to three each direction.

omg!

Wow. Wow. YOU GUYS. We went slow with lots of reassurance and were VERY intentional about each step. Anytime he thought about rushing or getting frantic, we went back to walk, but you know what?

IT ACTUALLY WORKED.

That's a first.

So thrilled with this little horse right now. Omg. <3

he's pretty impressed

So obviously, the browband works.