Transitions, transitions

I had a better day with Gypsy today. She let me walk right up to her today and didn't move away. She sniffed me, then resumed eating grass, but didn't move away. I scratched her all over, then asked her to put her nose in the halter. No resistance. Which is good! Especially considering my session with her yesterday.

I took her out, groomed her, let her graze, then put on the saddle. I didn't get on right away though, I started by doing some yoyo between the barrels, backing over the pole again, sideways without a fence, squeeze over a jump and circling game. The yoyo through the barrels was almost perfect. Almost straight and very little resistance (almost all phase 1). The second time was even better because she understood what I was asking with the barrels. Nice positive look on her face when she stopped and lots of licking and chewing. Yay!

She still had trouble backing over a pole. But she did it, hesitantly. I didn't push that one. Sideways without a fence still has a lot of forward drift. This time I tried to just get her to move sideways one step at a time and if she stepped forward, I stopped and asked her to back up. Unfortunately, when I asked her to back, she'd turn and face me then back up. So I drove her head away from me, then asked her to back again. Pretty crooked, but I got her going in the right direction eventually. Then I asked for sideways again. Still lots of drift forward and lots of asking her to back up. We switched sides and she seemed to have an easier time of it going to her left. I found that riding her as well... she'd go sideways easier to the left than to the right.

We only did squeeze over a jump a couple of times; the only problem she has with that (as with most tasks) is turning to face me, then standing still. After each squeeze I mostly worked on getting her to stand still for 10 seconds. It took a few rope wiggles to get her to stand, but eventually she did. Then I asked her to circle. As usual, she stopped after each circle and started to come in. It took about 4 or 5 re-sends to get her to circle 3 times without asking to come in. After the 3 circles at the trot (she always trots), I started asking her to walk. Each time I wiggled the rope though, she would stop and try to come in and I would re-send, she would walk, then trot, I wiggled the rope, she'd stop and turn in .... re-send etc. etc. for about 7-8 times. Finally she walked one whole circle. I asked her to disengage.

Then I put on the bridle (snaffle this time to see if it made any difference) and got on. We walked around for a while, then I asked her to trot. Immediately she started speeding up. I tried the one-rein stop and she turned and slowed, then trotted off again as soon as I released. I repeated this every time she trotted off without waiting for me to ask her. Finally she walked off (fast walk though) and we did some smaller circles at the walk and then I asked her to trot and immediately asked her to walk again. We did this about 20 times, but she never got softer. If anything she got stronger and it got harder to get her to slow down. I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. Eventually I started circling her smaller and smaller each time she sped up and only let her straighten out when she softened. As long as she stayed at a collected trot, I left her alone. Eventually I could get about half way around the paddock at a nice collected trot before she would speed up. Partly that was because she had to trot downhill, so it's hard to stay collected downhill. On the downhill - as soon as she started to speed up, I asked her to walk. I'm still having to pull way too hard on the rein to get a response. I know I'm doing this wrong, I just don't know how to do it right. Maybe picking the same two spots to ride to and stop? Would she anticipate the stop or transition then?

I also tried to canter her. She did pick up the canter, but she's REALLY front heavy at the canter and she really leans and drops her shoulder into the turn. Picking up on the reins to try to collect her a bit only makes her trot. She can't maintain a canter around any kind of direction change. She always breaks to a rough trot as soon as I ask for a turn (because that involves picking up the rein!) Don't know what to do at all. It's not a nice canter at all and no matter what I do, I can't keep her going for more than about a quarter of the way around the paddock. And there's no cantering her at all in the round pen, she just won't do it. ARRGH!! I'm really at a loss as to what to do about the cantering.

I abandoned the cantering, because she also goes right-brained when we canter, and we lost all of her collection at the trot. So we went back to trotting and trying to get her collected again (lots of circles). Then we did some backing up and sideways, and once she was focussed again, I let her walk around, then let my daughter ride her a bit in the round pen. Not sure what Holly did with my camera to get the photos to show only black and white except for green.... but it's kind of a cool effect!