3.5 hours of trying to find a way with my horse

On Kate's suggestion I started my ride today at 10 AM riding cones. All sorts of cone exercises: Riding around them in tight pivots, both directions, and riding just past each cone, stopping, and pivoting 45 degrees to head to the next one. That is an excellent exercise! Mara seemed to get it. She did not get the purposeful knocking down/lifting up of cones, even though we'd done the knocking down before. Today she preferred to rest her head against each cone, nuzzling it gently, but nothing more.

After all that we did our other exericises, and she was OK, but still not where we were before I fell off.

Then I took her into the woods, determined to do some trail riding alone.

I thought, "Oh, I'll just lead her down that slippery switchback and then ride her back up, that will be enough for today."

Then halfway down I thought, no, I have to do more.

I got on her at the swamp where I released those tadpoles in 2009 and started riding her up to the other side. She started hesitating about everything, especially a bunch of yellow flowers. I remembered to bend her when she tensed up, and not just side to side, but if she was really scared, to do some leg yields.

We basically spent the day bending and leg yielding, cuz she never settled down.

On the long hill up to the watershed bluff, I asked her to jog, and sat the jog the entire way, which exhausted her completely. It's only like 2-3 minutes, but she was so worried about everything, and we weaved back and forth across the gravel road so many times, she was a mess by the top.

At the top, as I promised her, I let her graze on the lush grass for 15 minutes. A hiker couple arrived and said, "Beautiful" when they saw us at the crest of the watershed, maybe she looked pretty with the water in the background? We slipped into the trees and I found somewhere to mount to head back.

Heading back was hell. Mara was completely unnerved by every leaf that shook in the breeze, and every patch of sunlight on the road that we'd just taken up.

I just bent and lateralled her down that entire hillside, but when she saw a particular flower rustling, she became so unglued she couldn't proceed.

I let her stop for 10 minutes, just standing there thinking. I asked for some turns on the haunches, both directions, and backing, and so on, and she still didn't want to proceed. I got her flexing to touch my stirrups with her nose, both sides, repeatedly, to unlock her body, but she would not proceed.

Finally we made it down, with several other incidents like that where she couldn't handle it, even though we were on our way home, and we'd just been there.

Almost home, she had a total meltdown at the trailhead where our neighorhood meets the trails, the little cave-like opening of woods that changes to pasture where the shepherd lives, and the neighbors have chickens, goats and sheep, and today, laundry hanging everywhere.

I took her off trail and let her circle around, repeatedly, until she started to refuse to go back, the direction away from her fear, because she knew she'd have to come back to it anyway. She's smart and will not let her energy be wasted on extra work to avoid fear, even when I let her rest each time she faced the scary tunnel.

I finally got 5 meters further toward home than before, and jumped off and  took my lead rope and made her go in front of me. I was not going to lead her out of that tunnel of trees, she was going to have to go first. A questionably cruel compromise.

She did, and then I circled her a bit once in the open field by the shepherd's.

She was beside herself, as usual in that location, as I've blogged about endlessly.

After jogging her in circles around me all the way up the field hillside, I finally stopped her, backed her a few times, and then let her stand. The sheep and goats were all so scared of her antics, they'd run around a corner where we could not see them, but I stood there 30 minutes so eventually they came out. And eventually I let Mara graze, in the most horrible place in the universe. We progressed over to the world's most beautiful chicken coop (need a photo!) where she found a bunch of fallen pears to eat.

30 minutes later, we made our way slowly home, and I also let her graze our lawn, dragging out the entire experience. A big moving truck drove by us, incredibly loud, and about 2 meters from Mara's body. She kept grazing as it shook the earth from his downshifting up the hill. Not afraid of vehicles at all. How odd.

Mara drank (for the first time at my request) on returning home.

Then I tied her up, and the donkey too, and left them an hour, where I could watch them.

Mara was fine being tied, cuz, well, it's her normal spot to stand where she can gaze across the street and see the neighbor horses. Bellis was less calm.

Eventually I took Bellis to a spot were Mara could not see her, which upset Mara a little bit at first, but Bellis could eat the leaves off the hazenut tree happily, and bray to me miserably between mouthfulls. Mara was calm because with all the braying and hazelnut rustling it was clear where her friend was.

Then I put Mara in a stall, as an experiment. She neighed, but soon gave up.

I think separation training will go well, well, I hope..cuz in a few weeks I'm taking Mara away for a weekend clinic, where Bellis will have to stay home.

Oh, that's gonna be rough.

I spent more time up on her back today, but very little of it was pleasant, and too much of it was just standing there doing nothing. Balking is preferrable to bolting, I suppose, but I feel like I'm getting nowhere. And because she's so unhappy to be out there alone, I am unmotivated to actually do it. Probably I should just leave the saddle at home and take her for more walks. I don't know, I'm sick of being on the ground.