Poor Duck!

Ok I feel really guilty now. Duck and her bad attitude on the weave pattern and me trying to fix it came to bite me in the behind. While playing weave Duck was really crabby. Obstacles didn't seem to make a difference in her attitude, and sending her more snappy definitely made it worse. So I was trying another tactic, the "don't give me that attitude" with a phase 4 attached (with the lead rope). Anyway so after about 3 bumps she is getting a little better. Well I send her again and she puts her head down and ears back as flat as they will go. So I wind up my arm to do a phase 4, let it rip, and WHAMO the buckle hits her right in the eye! I thought I blinded my horse! She backed up about 10 feet and then stood dazed. I immediately went to pet her and check her out. She is holding her eye shut. She then opened it and I couldn't see any damage. Then I look and whew, it looks like it hit her the worst right under the eye. It left a small cut and was bleeding a little. That was a first for me (and hopefully a last). Who knew the leadrope could be that deadly?

The poor girl when we were all done she was eating a cookie in her corral (with electric fence) and she started leaning on the electric wire. I thought for a second the wire was off cause she leaned into it for awhile. Then SHOCK, and she took off quick! Poor girl! 

Anyway other than our mishap the session went fairly well. She really is sticking to the rail quite well. She has been a bit rushy at the trot still and I am not sure if it is the way I am riding or her confidence or both? Time will tell. We did follow the rail at the walk, trot, with turns etc. She doesn't break gait although the whole time she felt like she was going to break into a canter. 

On the ground we went first to the large trailer (the small one was at a show). I was trying to move the divider on the left side when she loaded herself on the right! And she only backed out after a minute or so! Then when I asked her in the second time she went straight in and stayed there nosing around calmly until I asked her out! Yeah!

We did a figure 8 on the 12 ft line around 2 picnic benches (and it was near a little hill too) for which I didn't get hardly any crabby ears. Then we went to the arena to do the weave (with obstacles) and got the major crabby ears. I need to pull out the liberty and horse behavior and review some of the sections.

All in all a a good hour and a half today. All because I went in early to work my barn shift so I wouldn't get done at 12. Instead we were done at 10:30 which was really nice so I had a little time to play after. I actually like going in early when there is all those stalls to do. It just feels better, like I've gotten more accomplished if I get done earlier! The barn got a beautiful gray horse in. He is the cutest thing. I think I will always have a soft spot for gray horses since my first horse, Rose N' Gray was a little gray arab. This guy is an absolutely gorgeous dappled gray. And it looks like he's gaited too. I always love to see beautiful horses!

With it being so close to Christmas who knows when I will be able to ride/play next. We are going to be doing holiday stuff I am sure!