Friday - messy outside

Not conducive to the drying out of Willow's paddock. I want there yesterday to work with her some. There are 5 horses there and her paddock is by far the worst. The only dry spot is in the run-in. Glad she has that but the rest is sloppy soup. Nasty. I feel bad for her. I was going to work with her there but there was no place to set the grooming box there. Literally standing water and muck. The BO suggested swapping her with another that is in what used to be their riding area. She also suggested throwing some hay. HUH? Throw hay and expect the mare to pay attention to me? So I worked with her and the other girl arrived and told me I should have waited for her to swap paddocks. There was no problem and I was just doing what the BO said. Then other girl throws hay. That pretty much put the kibosh on the training session. Willow jumped the half-down fence and joined the hay party. ugh. At least she was responding to me and she's obviously a smart girl. She pulls away and just uses brute force to avoid anything she doesn't want to do. Her owner refers to skiing behind her as she pulls away - no way to stop her. Also her head needs to come down for bridling. That's what caused her to jump the fence. I got her to drop her head with pressure to the poll a few times then I pulled out the bridle. Buh-bye! Over the fence. At least when I grabbed her halter to lead her back to the mud hole (I felt bad about that), though she balked at first, she complied. I felt like the session ended with me on top after all. (I might be rationalizing.) The other girl told me to put the flat halter back on her and put the chain over her nose. um...no. Her rope halter needs the knots shifted so they put pressure on her nose but I hope she quits the running away trick. Certainly not when I'm working with her running loose in the paddock. I want her to want to. Anyway. Very nice to have a horse to play with. Glad I had the cheap boots in the car. I still need to hose them off.

Girl is borderline acting up. That's her pattern of behavior. Gotta make her want to be good. :) She has school today. She seems to be doing okay with that but it's hard for her to sustain good behavior. Well, she's never done that so far. The facade is cracking. I'm hoping the best for her.