Continuing on with Phebes

Spent this morning ground working Phebes. This time I walked her down the road, across a field to a water crossing that gave me enough room to not get mashed. First she wanted to crowd my space, and attempted to jump into a fallen tree / brush pile. I had to be pretty assertive about that. She was fixing to hurt me, or to break a leg, or get cut up at the very least. So once that all calmed down we started working on the water crossing. It took about a hour to get her to the edge of it. I was unable to get her to stop and step in. She would either stop and back up, or she would take a flying leap over it. I even resorted to a carrot trail across the rocks.....she took to that up to the edge, and flew over again. I knew there was a shallower, and wider crossing on ahead, so I walked her to it. After some initial hesitation, she walked through it calmly, and back over calmly. So we did that for about fifteen minutes until she was able to stand in the middle of it, drop her head, and lip the water. Back to the ditch crossing. We probably spent an hour going over it, and over it, and OVER it. One direction she started touching a foot down in it and kind of gliding over instead of lurching over. The other direction she continue to jump, but was less frenzied about it, more like a little hop over. Keep in mind this was not a deep ditch, and the ground sloped down to it , not steep at all. After about two hours of this I was needing a drink, and had lost her attention span. So I figured progress had been made, and that would have to be good enough for water crossings today.

Gave her several hours to munch grass and went back out after her, saddled up and took her to the little trail section out back. She had a couple of melt downs over losing sight of the other horse, and all I can say is thank GOD for one-rein stops. We also had a turkey explode from the brush, and I didn't think I was going to be able to contain that one...........but we managed. This more or less frazzled her nerves, and I didn't like the horse under me. She felt like a coiled spring, head straight up. Brought her on back to the house and got back on and rode her up and down the driveway, and through the big water puddle next to the road. Enough excitement for one day, at least for this old lady. She rode me around for about 4 miles today I guess.