Bingo Update

Just a quick Bingo update for her owner, Christine...

We rode out in the dressage arena today.  Considering it was COLD (where's summer???  I swear it was like 40 degrees out today!) and windy, Bingo was good.  We had a few discussions about bending, especially to the right.  I tried something new today where if she's refusing to bend (usually by stopping or backing up) I just sit there and continually ask her to bend.  She kind of fussed and raised her head and started backing up, but I just sat there and kept my leg on.  When she stopped backing up, my leg came off and I let her stand there and think about it for a moment.  Then I put my leg back on, asking her to move forward.  If she went forward, great.  If instead she started backing up, we just repeated the process.  It took a while, but she seemed to get it and we got some great trot work.  We worked a little bit on leg yields, which she did with minimal fussing.  We also did a little bit of work on turn on the haunches.  I'm not sure if she's done those before?  But at any rate, she did them, they just weren't entirely pretty.  But she understood the general idea of what I was asking for, so that's good.  I just wanted to start doing some work getting her to understand she can move her haunches and her shoulders when I ask her to.  I think that will help a lot with the bending issue and her trying to evade by dropping her right shoulder.  We did a little bit of canter, but it wasn't the best today.  We ended with some nice stretching trot and then to cool out, we went for a walk up to the upper jump ring.  She was great, even though we were up there all by ourselves. 

I checked on Oliver too today and gave him some treats.  He was so funny.  As I'm walking towards him, he decides to lay down and then while he's laying down, he's munching away on the grass in front of him.  It was so cute!  He lost his shoe again :(  But James knows and is taking care of it (Christine has an awesome boyfriend!)  Luckily, Caitlin found one of his shoes today too.  But we're not sure if it's the shoe he lost most recently because it looks a little different from the one shoe he still has on.  Oliver also ripped his blanket last night :(  He must have been having fun with his buddies!

And quick edit:  Today (Saturday) I went to ride Bingo in the morning, but she wouldn't let me catch her :(  We tried everything from treats, to grain, to haltering her buddy and trying to take him out to see if she would follow.  Nothing worked, so after about 30 minutes we gave up.  If I ever decide to ride her in the morning again, I think I'm going to text Caitlin to have her kept in, since apparently Bingo doesn't think she should have to come in so soon after being turned out, lol.  Caitlin also found another one of Oliver's shoes, though, so that's good news!