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Guest Blog post # 20: "One Step Forward, Two Steps Back" by the famous Bad Eventer!

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Forget eventing...........

guest_blog_20_one_step_forward_two_steps_back

Line Dancing on Horse Back

this looks like more fun!

Well......that's how I'm starting to feel these days.

The Wonder Pony has been vacationing in the Caribbean, complete with expensive exercise pools and sun decks.

OK..... it's not exactly the Caribbean.......

but he's been on a little luxury R & R none the less.

That leaves me to ride

Trouble....

Or rather

The Evil Twin.

You know........ the W A R M B L O O D.

The problem with this horse is that he's entirely too smart, and therefore well above my skill level.

It only takes 2 repetitions for him to get something etched in his brain PERMANENTLY.

So.............

If you're Bad Eventer, and rather......um..... BAD at this sport.........

this is not the horse you want.

For example:

We have a bit of a counter canter issue. For some reason the lovely horse thinks that counter canter is the END OF THE WORLD.

After much failure in doing a counter canter loop, we did an exercise to come out of the corner in canter, then TROT (before he had a chance to do something.......rather explosive)

and then pick the lead up again.

We only did this exercise ONE TIME in ONE lesson.

I'm sure you see where this is going..................

We get to the show...........we come out of the corner in our counter canter loop....................

and he........ trots.

Of Course he trots.

He's just THAT smart, and learned the lesson well!

In spite of the bobble, we found ourselves in the top of the pack after dressage. After all, he's a WARMBLOOD. Dressage judges LOVE him.

Stadium was a step forward. We've come a LONG LONG way in stadium.

He mostly turns before we run into something, jumps in the middle of what he's pointed at, and has actually started listening to my half halts.

This last bit turned out to be a BIG PROBLEM.

This horse has basically blown me off our entire difficult partnership.

OK, who are we kidding..... this is definitely not a partnership. More like a difficult relationship that everyone knows is over but the parties involved are just too stubborn to quit.

Back to the point. He doesn't listen. As a matter of fact he used to absolutely FLOOR IT in front of every jump. I could sit up and pull back all I wanted and he was going at mock 10 no matter what.

In some amazing training accomplishment, recently he's decided to pay attention when I give a tug. We had an adjustability lesson the day before the show, and we did a nice 7 stride bending line.
As an extra CHALLENGE I was supposed to try it in 8 strides. (A feat that was IMPOSSIBLE a few weeks ago.)

I gave a tug, and the next thing I knew we put in NINE!!

That turned out to be the kiss of death for the weekend.

I like to think of training horses as a continuous pendulum swing. You work on something until you fix it and happen to break something else.......................

Boy is that what happened.

I'm used to heading to a jump, taking a huge tug and little to nothing happening.

For the first time in history, I'm heading to the jump, I take a tug and the pony not only listens ...........he freaking stops.

Warm up choke returned.............

I thought I had left the days of smashing through warm up jumps behind me.

NO SUCH LUCK

The Evil Twin is not only very smart, he has a work ethic of ZERO.

This means it doesn't take much of a bad ride for him to decide that it's time to go home.

We took a lot of "money out of the confidence bank" at the last show (See "Are You Crying?" for the details), and apparently there has been a problem......

smoldering in the background.

The Evil Twin started out a bit ditchy.

He was bad enough that I incorporated jumping a ditch into every ride....jumping, flat work, trot set or otherwise. If he jumped a ditch every day he seemed to carry on.

I even sent him to a professional to compete him over his first trakehner.

There was NO WAY Bad Eventer was taking on that project. I lose sleep at night over trakehners. And I've had a few ambulance rides thanks to them.

We'd been cooking along with no problems with ditches in months. Oh....we had problems at skinnies, corners, chevrons............but not ditches.

Then a couple shows back his batteries ran out near the end of the course and he caught a leg on the trakehner. He had jumped it willingly, but when he smacked into it the crowd watching all gasped loud enough I heard them..........so it must've been a bit scary.

At the next show he gave the trakehners a HUGE look. It was unusual so I definitely noticed.......... and then he started peeking at them schooling as well....

He was still jumping them, but he was paying lots of attention to them, and giving me every indication that he wasn't thrilled.

This weekend was the perfect storm...........

and that was more than just the weather pattern.............

yes..... again!

We missed at a couple jumps in warm up badly enough that it took most of the money out of the bank...........

Then we FLOPPED out of the water.........

which completely emptied the account.

When we reached the

GIANT

GAPING HOLE IN THE GROUND

he had decided this game was definitely not any fun, and he wasn't playing.

When he sat down and slid 4 feet in front of the jump I thought we still had a chance.

When we circled and he shut down 3 strides out.............I knew we were done.

It was my very first Retirement. It felt so strange sticking my hand up and walking away.

In the past Bad Eventer would always try ONE more time.......... then fall INTO the ditch............... and leave in some kind of medical transport..........