Self-Schooling is hard.

We had freezing rain this morning, and cold spitting showers off and on until late afternoon.  Not enough to soak anything up real sloppy, but enough to get the horses good and muddy with the rolling and such.  It took me longer to brush her and get my saddle stirrups readjusted than my riding session probably lasted.  At first I was kind of discouraged.  She wanted to toss her head and was giving me a lot of mare ears and stink eye.  After a few of the hip disengaging stop thingys she started getting with the program.  Head pretty high starting out, but maybe ten minutes of work to get her working in a more relaxed frame.  We did some backing, some "crooked" sidepassing (another clinic to do someday), trotting some pretty tight circles and then some larger ones.  We didn't attempt canter in our lot because it is grass and it had been raining enough to get the top soil slick enough that I didn't want to risk it.  As weather permits I can do some of this work up to four nights a week (if we have daylight).  I can see that ROME WON'T BE BUILT in a day.  It takes work, and it is work, and it is easier when you have someone on the sideline correcting your mistakes!  I seem to remember most of it though and was getting a response after her rough start.   We finished up with my version of horsey massage and she really liked that. ~E.G.