Fingers crossed

I may have my old pony back.

Felix and I have had a rough month, as he started spooking quite badly at everything - and generally having bad attitude, complete with bucking and flinging his head around constantly.

Wednesday I finally had it with the shennanigans, and put him in side reins. I'm not a huge fan of longing, but I figured if he ran into the side reins every time he flailed with his face, he'd learn.  We did about 40 minutes of longing - this took longer then expected due to the fact that you have to pay extra attention to him on the right rein or he'll stop and get wrapped in the longe line. By the time we were done all I felt like he was up to doing was a ridden cool-out at the walk, which was uneventful.

Then, he got 4 days off. I was not feeling well, and the winter weather does not inspire me to do much more then sleep.  I got back out there today, he got a short longe session - then I got on and it was 100% back to buisness as usual.  One of the young riders from the barn, Bailey got on him and hopped him over a few Xes. This also went very well - I'm going to try letting her ride him while I'm on vacation next month.  There are a few of the kids I really wish I could take with me when I move and she's definitely one of them.  It'll be amazing to have the arena to myself though!