Dichotomy

First up - Griffy update.  Homeboy is doing much better!  Turns out it was an ulcer, not an abscess - the one scenario in which an ulcer is actually a good thing.  He has had some medication adjustments, and is significantly happier.  His eye was almost fully open today, and if things continue improving, he should be able to go back to work sometime in the next few weeks.

Yay, Griffin!

Onwards to...dichotomy.  The dichotomy between riding my horse in a lesson, and riding my horse on my own.  In recent posts, I've talked about how great Leo has been during our lessons - exciting, brave things have been happening, and oftentimes much progress has been made.  There was time off because of the eye injury, but it seemed that most progress was not lost, and lessons have continued to be much fun.  

Happy horse. From Monday night.

In lessons, in the company of other horses, Leo is becoming braver and more badass all the time.  But the thing is, most of our time together isn't spent in lessons.  We don't jump outside of lessons (barn rule), and when I ride, it's typically by myself. And honestly, it isn't really all that fun.  We spend most of our time trotting in endless circles until Leo's head stops exploding, attempting to canter, and then going back to trotting for another 10-20 minutes.  Trotting on a loose rein is still a great exercise, but it's not particularly productive - when I pick the reins back up, all hell breaks loose and we have to start over again, every. single. time.  

Still has the cutest face ever. 

This leads to a lot of days spent exploring ground work options, and less time spent in the saddle because ground work has started to often sound more appealing than riding.  (the weather also factors in here; if I'm at the barn for work I typically have on muck boots and roughly 17000 layers, and if it's freezing I am not typically inclined to remove said layers in order to ride).  

Still rockin' the Equivizor...may be slightly overprotective of the eye.

The dichotomy is this: we have great lessons that are mostly fun and feel productive, and then I ride on my own and feel stagnant and like we have made zero progress and quite often, it isn't particularly enjoyable.  

precious little face.

Don't get me wrong - I freaking love this horse.  He's absolutely fantastic to be around and is a blast to ride on our good days.  But.  It's not always easy, and I do wonder sometimes whether or not he is the right horse for me, or if he would do better with someone else.  And as our first show approaches, I am increasingly becoming worried that Leo at shows will be like Griffin at shows, which is not a good thing to be at any show, ever.  (Griffin at shows = frantic, semi-psychotic mess that will ignore all cues and aids in semi-dangerous attempts to sprint back to his friends. (this effect disappears if the show is indoors, where he is still frantic but less panicked)).  His one outing since I bought him was the Haunted Hunter Pace, and his behavior was not exactly reassuring; he basically wanted to gallop the entire time, and refused to jump any and all cross country jumps unless he was directly following another horse.  Which is why we are starting him in hunters, so that ground poles is an option if things go south during warm-up.  

still love him.

This was all a very roundabout way of saying that sometimes I feel lost, and like this whole thing is an uphill battle that never gets easier, and that it isn't always happy brave jumping lessons and sunshine.  But I still love this ridiculous goofball of a horse.