Frustration

     Sunday was a great ride.  Monday Mort had a spa day and a light lunge.  Yesterday I planned on a ride focusing a lot on lateral work.  Yesterday was a good ten degrees cooler and breezy.  This, combined with a need to work on his head tilt and a steeper leg yield, was what made me choose lateral work.  It helps unlock his topline.  With his added energy, we could potentially get some really good quality gaits.  Finally, the lateral work helps keep him focused and engaged in the ride rather than looking around at the other ponies on the property.  It seemed like a good plan to me.

     I put on my spurs and hopped on.  He had a lot of energy and gave me a huge walk.  I'm never mad about that, but it was noted.  I spent a good amount of time at the walk trying to establish a quiet response to moving off of my leg.  He had a couple of really tense/upside-down moments.  He does a really fun thing when he feels like there is too much pressure when he drops out his back, flings his head in the air, and shuffles his feet in a strange way.  My response is usually to drop the pressure of whatever we're working on but to up the "go forward" pressure.  He does it less than he used to but he did it a lot yesterday.  Keep in mind that I wasn't asking for anything new or extremely difficult, but his mind was just not in the right place. 

     Now, with what I just said, I should have gotten some decent walk work, and taken him on a ride along the fence line.  I'm not that smart of a rider or human.  I get sucked into trying "one more thing" to get him to relax.  I think it stems from him not being that bad.  He feels so close to letting go with his topline.  It's like we're on the verge of something good but just can't quite figure it out.  I also get frustrated and get sucked into trying to find that moment of soft connection to end on. 

     I really need to get over this on days like yesterday.  I am not sure why it's so hard for me mentally, but I just keep trying instead of sticking with making Mort a happy dressage pony and realizing not every day will be great.  It's so easy to end early on the good days and it's so hard (for me) to not keep trying on the bad days.  I just have that personality where I don't like to quit.  It can be great sometimes--like for my distance running--but it's really not fair for Mort.  I am not 100% sure how to get myself over it, but hopefully the more aware of it that I am the more likely that I'll leave the situation.  Ugh. 

     Needless to say, yesterday Mort and I did a ton of things.  I tried bend/counter-bend.  We did shoulder-in and leg yields.  I did a bunch of transitions.  I tried stretchy trot.  I tried letting him canter on a loose rein for a little bit.  I took him for a short walk about the property.  I tried half seat at the trot.  None of that worked fully.  We had some ok moments; the shoulder-in was most helpful, but throughout the ride I never got that topline unlocked and I never fully got him pushing from his hind-end into the bridle.  I still ended the ride with a great, swinging walk so he wasn't ruined by all of the crap I was doing, but he sure wasn't the better for it either.

     I should know better.  I'm not a novice rider.  I know that nagging and pushing a horse when it's not mentally there is stupid and a waste of time (at best).  Logically I know what happened was dumb.  But in the moment I cannot seem to remember that being more important than trying "one more time".  Poor Mort did get some extra hand grazing because I needed that mentally.  I'm sure all he was worried about was his dinner and turnout.  Moral of the story:  I'm frustrated with myself today.