21.07.2016- The shortest hack of all time

The weather has been crazy warm this week so I've mainly been letting Jack just have some down time in the field because it wouldn't be fair to work him in this heat. I had a day off yesterday, so I waited until it cooled down later on to go have a little ride. We did about 25 minutes schooling which he went well for the most part, just working on canter work really as with the weather being so muggy I didn't want to push him with anything challenging and his canter is his best pace. Then afterwards, for some mad reason, I decided to try heading off the yard. This was all well and good until we got to the bottom of the drive. Now he's had much worse tantrums in the past I must admit and we didn't have rearing, he just kept turning back round to go home but after a few minutes of me just turning him back around, he finally decided that it was clearly more effort than it was worth and off we went. We only went to the end of the road and back so not even five minutes, but for us this is miracle! Usually we don't ever make it past the drive without me having to get off and lead him! I then gave him a quick shower down after and he was perfect, he stood still the whole time, even when I hosed his mane and his face, so I was really pleased with him for that :)

                                              

Today however was not quite so successful... with the weather being nice again and after the success of yesterday, I thought maybe we'd try another little hack. I'll give him the fact that he walked off down the drive the best he ever has (a few weeks ago, he'd rear and nap as soon as I got on off the mounting block and asked him to leave the stable block!) so that's an improvement, however as soon as we got to the bottom of the drive NUPE, no way, no thankyou. I think all it would have needed was for me to get off, lead him a little bit of the way and then ride, but luckily my timing was spot on and another livery was just getting back from hacking her horse, so she gave us a lead off the yard and then just took us out for a short 10 minute hack, down a different route to yesterday. Once we'd got over the whole drive fiasco, he hacked out like a Blackpool beach donkey and even gave Apple the other horse a lead past some scary road markings. Not quite how I'd wanted things to go, but I think in a way it actually did my confidence some good as I realised that actually, once the dramas are out of the way, he is actually quite good to hack and with another horse he'd go for miles so maybe that little mishap and good timing was what I needed. I want to try and hack him out with other horses a few more times to try and get my confidence back up so I can start trying to crack on and sort our issues again. On the plus side, I hosed him off again and he was perfect again; dare I say I'm actually not dreading bathing him this weekend!???

                                   


Beth & Jack x