Day 16: October 13 - Cones

Today Sylvia helped me a lot with the cones and Jack. I've really been struggling with that obstacle, so she came and helped me. I started getting really frustrated, which means, I wasn't working good, so she took him and was just playing with him for a while so I could watch. It was really helpful, because it taught me when I should get after him when he misses a cone, and when I should just let him go around me and start over. I'm still not very good at it, but I'm getting better, so hopefully by the time we do the midterm I'll be able to do it right.

After we were done with the cones, Rachel was already riding Black Jack just by herself, so I asked Sylvia if she could to the partner game with us. She is great, and was more than willing to. It went really well I thought, except for the biting. He keeps trying to bite my foot, and when I talked to Brother Twitchell about it, he pointed out that I am riding Jack, and he naturally just bites a lot. But, this seems different to me. Normally when he bites, it's more of nipping at me instead of REALLY trying to bite, so I'm going to start kicking him in the nose when he tries to bite, and if it's just a behavioral problem, then it should start fixing it, but if it's his back hurting, then I don't think he'll quit. So I guess we'll see what happens.

Oh, highlight of the day. Sylvia took us over the jump, and instead of just walking over, he actually jumped, and I stayed on! I've never jumped bare back before!