Kick In The Butt

 This spring I have really been struggling with my motivation. It has been a bunch of little things, but I have really been dragging my feet about going out to the barn and then I feel guilty and so on and so forth. Thankfully, before I really started losing my motivation I scheduled a trip down to my trainer's place for this past weekend.

Settling in

So bright and early on Friday Karma and I headed out. The drive isn't terrible it is about 4.5 hours and it didn't rain nearly as much as I anticipated. We arrived a couple of hours before my first lesson, so she had time to eat and drink and settle in before I rode. I was really pleased with how well she travels. She ate all of her hay in her hay bag on the trailer, unloaded drank, and immediately started eating.

Mirror selfie from the first ride

Our first ride was a lot of fiddling to see where things were at. We played with some bits. The last time I was down there she was locking her neck so we swapped her to a bit that helped me unlock her. Now she is curling and hiding behind the contact, so we were looking for something that she wanted to go into without me losing all communication.

She got breakfast at the trailer because I was feeding earlier than the rest of horses and I felt bad taunting them

Our second ride was more playing with bits and really working on getting her steady. Sometimes I swear she manages to have every leg going in a different direction. Getting her packaged and straight is a challenge, but that is pretty standard baby horse problems. You get a 2x4 or going in 20 different directions.

Screenshot from the video of the third ride

The third ride we finally managed to get things dialed in (my riding included). Once my trainer got me riding correctly, I swear Karma went oh thank god and she settled right into a nice steady contact. It is amazing what she is like when she has a steady place to go. One of these days I will be able to keep more than three riding instructions in my brain at a time.

30 second trot video (pivo struggles in the ring)

I am so proud of how well Karma did. She handled being stalled for 48 hours really well despite not having been in a stall since our last trip last fall. She really stepped up to the plate work wise. I really adore how solid and willing she is. And now I am feeling much more motivated.