Thinking in millimeters

Another tidbit from our cowboy session was that horses think in millimeters and humans think in meters (well, he said feet, but I have a distaste for the imperial system and mixing imperial and metric in one sentence). I applied that to my ride with Goggles on Wednesday, and WOW! That idea made it SO much easier to reward the tiniest movement off his inside shoulder. I also managed to quit before we had done too much. So we did 25 minutes of walk and trot and it was GREAT! I felt like I managed to leave him at the end feeling like he was brilliant, which I should do every ride, but I am human and fail and push too much sometimes. The goal is not to have him bending through his barrel and up off his inside shoulder. The goal is to have him ever-so-slightly closer to that position than the stride before. 

He came back from JT's very undeweight. Not her fault at all, but I think he arrived and stressed and travelled to and from while stressing. And in the 17 hand TB way immediately dropped any of the weight we had finally gotten onto him. 

I shot these pictures post-ride Wednesday, trying to get the least flattering angle I could to make sure we were going in the right direction. He is in the middle of his lunch of two scoops of TC and one scoop of soaked alfalfa cubes. Remind me why I have two thoroughbreds? 

We did some work on block one (aka relax somewhere not at the end of the rope and not in my space) outside the trailer on Tuesday. He was very good and checked it out some on his own. I didn't ask anything, he could be way outside of it if he wanted (22 foot rope). I just wanted him to be confident near the trailer. 

I was confused by this one. He came in on his own and then immediately looked stressed. But he backed out slowly, so I was still pleased. 

In other news, it is now that time of year in Florida where you walk out the door and get slammed in the face by a wall of heat and humidity. Delights. Please take me back to the chilly evenings and mornings of NC when I was there in May. Not going to get back up until August, but my brother and I are going to NY in July, which is not as reliably chilly, but is at least always cooler than Florida. 

These blackberries should be ripe berries in August

And a little recommendation for JVN hair products... as a curly haired person in FL, I struggle with massive amounts of frizz. My hair also likes to eat product. So I can have gelled looking curls, which I don't love, or frizz. I almost always resort to just wadding it up in a bun on my head. But I've been using the JVN shampoo, conditioner, and complete air dry cream for a week now and I loooooove it.