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Friday 16 May 2014

Confidence Crisis


 Looking like butter wouldn't melt after ignoring me for three days when I was pottering in his field!

What with not riding due to waiting for my foot tattoo to heal, and Rio being a bit of a pillock on the yard at the moment, my confidence has taken a knock. I'm perfectly happy to work in hand with him but just getting into the saddle feels like an accomplishment! I took him out around the field last week on our own, and he spooked and attempted to rear up a couple of times in the scary corner. I walked him off, and we did a loop and did it from the other direction with the same result, but I didn't get off, I didn't fall off, and I resolved to keep calm and get him back to the yard. That actually made me feel a bit better, knowing I could stay on, but on Friday I decided to walk him out in hand on the lunge line to get him used to being in the scary corner. Clever old me forgot to grab gloves!


I'm not kidding when I say I would rather have another foot tattoo (because that barely hurt!) than experience rope burn EVER again. However, it has healed fairly quickly, and I was back in the saddle last night for what I hoped would be a mooch around the village with Sarah and Franks. There were no major dramas, we made it past spook corner without spooking, through the overgrown exit of the field, and around the roads, past the barking dog behind the fence, and on the way home he decided to get an absolute stomp on and get a bit jiggly. I did my best to relax, and we made it home in one piece, so now I just have to stick with it and try and make hacking normal again. 


I'm off on holiday in a couple of weeks, so Sarah will be taking care of Rio and he'll be having a bit of a boot camp. Fingers crossed, having a more confident rider will give him a boost and a helping hand too, and I think she's looking forward to having a play with him! He's certainly getting a bit of Welshy character about him, and we're working on keeping the bulshiness at bay. I still love playing in the field with him, when he's in the mood for it, we have such fun :)


Ride safe x

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