"Don't Pet Me, I Bite"

Apparently, "Don't Pet Me, I Bite" is what the girls needed to put outside of Dee's stall last week.  For whatever reason, a bunch of middle-school age children were being brought through the barn on tours, and Dee was incredibly upset about them.  I guess she started by just making nasty faces and tossing her head at them, but that quickly escalated to bite-attempts, and yet, the kids STILL wanted to pet her and crowd her.  The kids sounded pretty out of control, and one of them even slapped a gelding across the face for no reason at all.  At that point, the BM but chains across the barn door to keep them out.  That's one more thing Dee and I have in common - being uncomfortable with large groups of children.

We've been having afternoon storms all week, which kept me from riding, but the weather is finally gorgeous, and Dee and I had a nice time today.  I found out that Dee will stand like a soldier to be groomed if I just refrain from hooking her to the cross-ties.  I don't know why this makes a difference, but she is a completely different animal when I just keep her on a lead rope in the grooming stall.  Mares.  Go figure.

She has been absolutely fantastic under saddle, too.  She still starts out being tight through her neck and back, but then she relaxes and settles into the contact.  She is even giving me little changes in the trot, which is exciting, because her former response to "trot bigger" was "I will explode and gallop like a madwoman!"  Now, when I say "trot bigger" she just says "ok!"  Now our big project is getting her right hind stronger.  That's always been her weaker leg, and it's just time.  At least she is finally trying hard and working correctly most of the time!

We had a gorgeous day to work today, and afterwards, she got lots of grass and I got some nice shots of Brietta, the BM's gorgeous filly.

Passage!

Yesterday, I took a dressage lesson on one of the school horses.  I haven't had a chance to just work on myself in a long time, so I was pretty excited for the opportunity.  The horse's name was Joey, and he is an old schoolmaster who has a few fin tricks up his sleeves.  After some lovely trot and canter work, I had the chance to do something I've always wanted to do - ride passage!  It was definitely one of the coolest things I've experienced on horseback.  Whaddaya say, Deedles, you wanna be an upper-level dressage thoroughbred?  

"No upper-level nonsense for me, thanks, I'll just eat this tasty grass."

 To her credit, Dee has been quite lovely lately (other than a brief "I will kill you mom" moment the other day).  The canter has really been coming along, and she's feeling almost as good as she felt the last summer I had her (pre-law school).  Of course, she's a lot more buck-happy than she used to be, but as long as I keep her out in front of the leg at all times, she is a complete lady.  Yesterday and today we got some steps of counter-canter in both directions, and today she was even quite rideable at trot, which isn't always the case.  While she has been behaving in trot, she never feels super rideable... and by that I mean I never feel like I can really put my leg on and ask her to give me MORE.  Today she actually let me put my leg on and gave me a few little lengthenings without losing her cool, which was exciting.

She is also much more laid back in the barn:

One of the boys

Dee had to be moved into a new pasture last week.  Since she moved to Tennessee, she has been in a large pasture with two mares.  She's actually been out with two different sets of mares, and inevitably picks the weaker one and herds it around the pasture, uses it against people trying to catch her.  So that was the other problem -- she has been very hard to catch.  Even the barn help was having to bring her dinner down to the pasture to catch her.  It probably didn't help that the two mares didn't come in, so Dee felt like she didn't want to leave her little harem.  Well, then they switched over to night turn out and apparently something changed.  I went to the barn last week, not knowing they had switched, and she was already out.  Even a bucket of grain couldn't convince her to come in.  The BM offered to help me get her, because Dee only associates her with food, but I guess Dee wasn't going to be fooled.  BM almost got the rope around Dee's neck, at which point Dee spun around and tried to kick her while she ran off.  Witch.  (That's the one thing I've never really figured out about Dee.  When she is aggressive, like threatening to kick or whatever, no amount of reprimand serves to really drive the point home.  For as many times as she has been seriously reprimanded for awfulness, she never really stops being a jerk.  She seems to take it as a challenge.  She's better than she was when she was 3, but she's still kind of nasty at times.)  We finally got her by taking the other mares out of the pasture.

The next day, I get a text from BM telling me that one of the girls went out to get Dee that morning and Dee tried to kick her when she got the rope around her.  So, they decided to move her.  The following day, I got a text telling me that Dee was actually curled up sleeping in her stall, had been a perfect lady coming in that morning, and seemed a lot more relaxed.  When I got up to the barn yesterday, she was less wild and fidgety than usual on the cross-ties, and one of the barn workers told me how great she's been to handle.  Hmm.

I then found out that her new pasture mates are geldings.  I can only conclude that the gender change of her herdmates has something to do with her 180.  She does like geldings, and I'm wondering if, because there isn't a ton of estrogen around her, she is feeling less possessive.  It was getting really out of hand, and even the BM mentioned how studdish Dee had been (hmm... second person to tell me my mare acts like a stallion... maybe something to look into).

She was quite brilliant yesterday, and I'm hoping that will continue.

Nomming on grain after being an angel for our ride.