Working at smoothing out the trotting speed average

Whew!  Journey was like riding a  long eared alligator today.  She gave me some crap challenges in our hour long session today.  The turn offs towards home create all kinds of acrobatics, spinning, bracing up on the right.  The wild turkey were also out in force and are probably roosted in the trees laughing their butts off about what they saw today.  So anyway...my goal was to pick a hill loop and work on our average trotting speed using the uphill to trot, and then the downhill to walk her pulse back down.  I discovered today that there is really no need to pulse her down because it dives as soon as you crest the hill.  This means I have a horse that is fitter than her training is ready for because mentally she is in no way ready to move up in speed beyond a trot.  She gets too wiggy on me.   In this respect she is a lot like Phebes in the early days, so I figure a thousand miles or so should smooth it out *LOL*

So the first little cluster of laps were about a quarter mile uphills:

5	2:42.1	0.23	5.2
6	2:37.4	0.23	5.3
7	2:43.2	0.23	5.1
8	3:00.5	0.23	4.7

Lap # 8 I had to stop her and put a knot in her tail ...

The next set were on flat ground and about  a third of a mile each :

10	2:56.0	0.33	6.8
11	2:58.4	0.33	6.7
12	3:00.2	0.33	6.6
13	3:00.9	0.33	6.7
14	2:59.9	0.33	6.6

So on the flat she is pretty consistent. While her uphill trotting she isn't putting a whole lot of effort into.

Her walk is what is killing our average, and sometimes with Journey you have to walk, such as steep downhills in order to teach her not to rush.

This was the pre-ride warm up:

1

12:36.8

0.52

2.5

Just shoot me now...see where I'm losing time?  That is about a  25 minute mile people!   Journey can walk 4 mph when "she" wants to, like pointed towards home.  This butt-dragging speed is leaving home.

Not the best ride day, but when I ride at home I sometimes get that.  Just have to suck it up and take my lumps.  If weather improves tomorrow I'll do some arena work and focus on softening on the right and bend some big circles and serpentines.