…In which we turn and turn about

Because it seems like once I make up my mind, something happens to change it again.

As I now handle two horses and make side by side comparisons, it’s interesting how it confirms the choice I made in the first place to lease out Copper and move on to a horse with more aptitude and ability.

I was thinking to half-lease Copper out after selling Joey, but now I am wondering if it might not be more advantageous to seek a half-lease for Joey and sell Copper instead.

The reasons I have for this thinking are these:

-  Copper is still a horse that I’ve moved on from.  Though he’s quieter on the ground and less baby-ish in manners, I have been riding him, and boy, he needs work.  He hadn’t been ridden in a while, and I think that he’s lost a lot of education that he had.  Poor riding position on the part of the rider I leased him too, and perhaps something more.  I’m not sure yet, but it’s work time for him!

Still, even with the work I know I need to put him into him to improve him again – I can feel the limitations he has – conformation-wise, mentally, and definitely background training.

-  Why half-lease Copper when I could half-lease Joey?  Yes, I have already thought of this, and yes, I had previously dismissed the idea because I thought it would be too hard to find a rider that would work with Joey.  But I realized that even if I was to lease Copper instead of Joey, I’d still want to share him with a rider that wasn’t going undo my work; i.e. – someone up to my level anyway; so why shouldn’t I do that with the horse I really want?!

-  Copper is Copper – he’s just as much work in his own way as Joey is.  Go figure!  I think I haven’t realised that until today after riding them both, one after the other.  Guess who was the better behaved?  

Well, you’re not wrong if you guess Joey! 

Long dissertation over, congrats if you managed to stick with it this far!
So what actually happen on the rides today? 

I lunged Joey first – he had a bit of a humpy back, so there where a few bucks in there…  I was like, oh.  Bother.  Still, I hopped on anyway, and gee – it really isn’t wasn’t a big deal.   

He got a little stuck up in front when I ask for trot circles – I forgot that he likes to move out when first trotting so I switched to an X pattern across the diagonal with half 20m circles on either end.
I got a lovely soft trot on the long lengths by pushing my seat forward and encouraging him to move up with his back end and loosen up his back, by the end of it, he was moving forward into the contact.  It was awesome!

It was a long frame – very beginner, but ohmygoodness!  He was connected, through, soft in hand – he felt like he was at the start of something, and I loved it.

Copper….  Well.  Humph.   Sure, he’s had time off, but eep!  What a mess. 
: P   He was as skittery as a rabbit in the grass, one touch of the leg (and I mean that literally – I couldn’t even settle my legs on his sides without him jumping like a crazy roo!) and we were off!  Walk wanted to be trot; so we worked on slowing that down, then trot wanted to be canter aannddd…  it was.

On the upside Copper has a lovely balanced canter in him now that he didn’t have before.  Downside; he also has a buck in him that he didn’t have before!

So we worked on establishing trot and when we got that on both reins it was time to finish for the day.  Whew.  Fun times, but I’ll be glad when I’m back to one wee beastie, not the both of them.

See ya,
bonita