Whizz, buck, fun

Finally two hours late Mum turned up to give Zippy and I our breakfast - not impressed I was literally kicking the bedroom door and walls in anger. I thought humans knew the importance of routine especially when it comes to feeding us rare breeds, it is no wonder we are rare I could have starved to death if I had been left much longer. 

I also want to point out while I am talking about neglect that by now it has been over a week since Mum has ridden me, well ok five days at least. So I was pleased to see Mum drag the box on wheels out of the mud and load me up for a trip - this always means I'm going to do something. 

Today it was a showjumping lesson with my favourite teacher Polly. As I was feeling full of beans and very very cross with Mum for not exercising me and leaving me in bed without breakfast for far too long this morning, I decided it was time to test out how well Mum has taken on board the advice Polly has been giving her. 

So today I gave Mum and Polly a look at what Polly called my 'sharp' side.  I call it my whizzy bucking side.  The lesson was being shared with a lovely cob who had no brakes, so I thought it was an ideal lesson to join in with this strategy and see how much control Mum really had, as it turns out she did quite well. 

First was a line of trotting poles - BORING. I decided to make it more exciting by cantering/jumping them, which was much more fun. It took Mum several attempts to gain sufficent control and rythmn to make me trot them properly. To make it more interesting I decided to intersperse the lesson with random acts of bolting and bucking, which was great fun. I think it took Polly somewhat by surprise as I have to date been a very well behaved pupil.  But I believe you need to keep challenging your rider otherwise they start to take our good behaviour for granted. 

You do need to time these episodes in such a manner that hopefully your rider won't fall off. Had I tried this behaviour in Mum's first lesson I definitely would have lost her as a passenger several times. But with Polly's teaching Mums position has become a lot more secure and I felt she was at a stage that I could add some of these tests in. While her riding might be coming on in leaps and bounds I'm not sure the same could be said for the language she used during these incidents!

So having survived the bolting and bucking incidents I needed to think up a new plan.  I tried dipping out to the second part of the doubles, as well as putting in small extra strides, or taking longer leaps, none of that phased Mum, she might have sworn at me but she made sure I jumped the jumps (all of them) everytime, with no refusals, including a brick wall (this was new to me) damn she's getting good. 

It was a beautiful day and this left me only one other tactic to employ, with the sun on my back while I stood and watched the cob employ some impressive anti braking strategies with her rider, I started to feel sleepy and decided on the cunning reverse strategy of I can't be bothered any more. Ouch that didn't work either, Polly had Mum whipping me up into a frenzy (I promise you I was left with no choice but to get my act into gear) to jump the course one more time, which obviously I obliged. 

Well all in all I think that was a good lesson, I got to let off some much needed steam and Mum has shown she can still control me and get me over jumps even when I try using my whizzy gear. Hmmmm I could be running out of ideas, so pony friends if you have any other suggestions of strategies I should try please let me know.