Lesson time - Bestie and I reinvigorate our relationship

So, this was a good week. Bestie and I took a lesson with our new barn manager, and while I won't say that the lesson went well (due to a certain mare's "my way or the highway" outlook on life) it was kind of fun and did give me some new things to think about and try. I've ridden her twice more since the lesson and we seem to be getting somewhere. Who would've thought that consistency would be a good thing? Ha.

Consistency is definitely my problem, mainly because pesky things like work and family and other interests and miscellaneous unexpected horse ailments have a way of interfering with what I want to do with my barn time. I remember this same pattern developed when I first took lessons with former barn manager Emma - I felt like I was really getting somewhere with Dude, then he had a little lameness issue, then I got busy at work ... blah blah blah.

But back to this week's lesson. We walked quite a while as Caitlin talked about what we could work on, then we trotted a slow jog, which was fine (with me), but then Caitlin asked me to speed her up a bit, and that's when Bestie was like, uh, excuse me, I don't believe I signed up for WORK. So we circled and circled and serpentined and serpentined while she snorted and huffed and trotted really fast and broke into the canter a couple times with me thinking calming thoughts and trying half halts and saying easy easy easy like a mantra. But she didn't pull anything really bad, which was good, and at the end she seemed like she had resigned herself to this new relationship with the treats and grooming lady. In the two sessions that have happened since the lesson, I've worked on getting her to respond more positively to my requests to trot and she has been pretty good. Today at one point she seemed to be working herself up, but I tried to stay quiet with my hands and sit deep in the saddle and she relaxed.

It's interesting. Definitely not dull. I think a lot about her psychology and my own. My problem is that after about 20 minutes I tend to get bored in the indoor - and so does she. Whether she's feeding off me or that's just her timer going off, I don't know. But I've written before about the difficulties of getting her down the path, and we haven't attempted it alone again. We went one time with another rider, and Bestie sort of halfheartedly attempted to turn back to the barn, but when I encouraged her to go forward, she did. I'm trying to get a really great positive vibe going in the indoor before we do the path thing again. Unfortunately, I need to skip a lesson this week because I'll be out of town. Consistency is hard. Sigh.