Goggles goes cross country- take 3

Goggles went for his third cross country trip on Monday. His first trip was fairly exciting, although not intended to be. His second trip had a lot more chill to it. And this trip? Kiddo knew from the start that we were there to EAT GRASS!! And took that job very seriously. It was great to have him just chill in between things that we were doing. 

The jumps themselves... Man... I required a lot of hand holding to hold his face less. I posted the highlight reel on social media. But the full 15 minutes of JT teaching me to let go of the horse's mouth are in the YouTube video. 

Basically, going forward feels semi out of control. And so I held and pulled. Which made him get a bit punchier each time. We finally de-escalated this cycle by doing a circle between two logs. Having the next to aim for as I went over one helped me focus on just riding him and letting him go forward because we were headed somewhere. And the pattern helped mellow him out a little bit too.

Wheeeeeee!!!

He was quite good over the ditch. The first time I didn't have enough purpose in our walk, so he paused for a minute, but then went with just a little encouragement.

Water was the best he's ever done it as well. He followed his friend in the first time, but then was a delighted water buffalo and drank a lot of the kind of gross looking water. We did the little tiny step up out of the water, and the little tiny step down onto land with a quick right turn into the water afterwards. Basically prepping him for an actual drop into the water.

He was so wonderful the whole trip. From his chill grass munching to his bravery with lots of sights to see, I could not be happier. I have a TON of learning and work to do and am so grateful to have a coach like JT to help me. Left to my own devices I'd definitely have him cranked down way too much and he'd be unhappy because of it. With her help her ended up feeling so confident and happy out there.