Houston, we have NO steering

There is something just wrong about passing up a chance to go stalking Matthew McConaughey with your girlfriends because you want to go spend time with your horse! Yeah, I've got it bad!

I think it's dawning on Megan that her new "career" is not a temporary state! She kind of had that look of we're doing this again when I tacked her up last night. She still dove into the bridle -- one of her more endearing traits, she just can't wait to get the bridle on.

Lunging was like trying to talk with your grumpy teenager. She shied at air and launched into the canter like she was possessed. I usually try to keep the lunge session to 5 minutes or so to avoid stressing her legs on the circle, but don't try to out Irish an Irish girl. You show me stubborn and you will get stubborn back in spades. So we headed to the "scarey, horse-eating basketball" end of the arena and got a little reminder on manners and that silliness has its place and it's not when Mom is working with you. I really think she's just bored with this part of our routine and causing trouble to entertain herself, but I'm not quite ready to give up a little "mood check" before hopping on.

Our mounting block in the covered arena is in the corner next to the fence. Just over the fence is a butterfly bush -- according to Megan butterfly bush leaves are the equine equivalent of chocolate and a girl just has to have some. Rather than fight this battle I normally drag the block out but then I have to remember to put it back -- not my strong suit. Rather than fight the butterfly bush addict we headed out to the outdoor arena and I climbed up onto the retaining wall to get on.

Detour: Not only can I not get a leg up (yes, honey I know we have a bet on this, we'll see) but I most certainly cannot climb on this behemoth from the ground. I haven't mounted from the ground in at least 10 years and probably longer. I do have a keen eye for any possible mounting surface and in fact look for them on trail rides just in case I might have a need. My old mare would have sidled up next to just about anything if it would help me get on. Megan is not quite there yet and still looks at me a bit askance when I ask her to step over to whatever I've found to climb on. I see some cookie conditioning in her near future.

We did some circles and serpentines in the outdoor arena to work on the concept of steering. She humored me and I decided to head out to one of the paddocks where someone else was riding. The walk to the paddock was past a stack of jumps -- oooo scary, the garden -- what's that!?!, and in sight of the basketball goal -- look I can be a giraffe! Silly girl, but good. Walking alongside Comet was a little challenging. No this is not a horsey social outing; you are here to work. This is where our steering disappeared. Heck the whole head disappeared as she curled up like a rolly polly. Lovely. Nothing like sitting on a silly baby with no head. It's kind of like holding a steering wheel that just came disconnected from the car -- useless. Back to the circles and pushing her forward into the bit with my leg. She actually did REALLY well. She paid attention and tried very hard to figure out what Mom was asking. Communication would come and go, but that's entirely expected.

After 10 minutes or so of walking around the field we headed back to the arena to let Comet get back to work from babysitting us. I decided to save the trot for the arena where the barriers could provide an assist with steering. We still nearly fell out of the ring several times! She's much better to the right so that will likely be her better side going forward. Horses, like people, are usually left or right handed and have one side that is more supple than the other. You just have to focus on working both sides and increasing suppleness in the stiff side. We did one 20 meter circle (after a fashion) to each side in trot. The cool thing is she already shows willingness to come round and into the bridle for several steps at a time. As soon as she gets her balance with a rider, I think things will progress very quickly! Woohoo!

All in all it was a GREAT evening. I do think I'll have to add a butterfly meter to the blog so I can see how long it will be when my butterflies go away from mounting up and I begin to trust her more. Last night was probably a 7 out of 10 on the butterfly scale.