After having such a bad day yesterday, I wanted to make sure Frankie hadn’t decided he was going to shun my requests for good.

Josh set up a few jumps all at 4′+ with a warm up vertical. I warmed up quickly and got right to business.

He was still a little weird to ride. Not sore, not ADD, not being bad, just not my horse.

I was just letting him be—to the warm up vertical he just wasn’t there. One time there was either going to be a long distance or a tight one, either way he needed to adjust. I softened to let him choose. Normally he would move up. He did nothing and we crashed through it.

I needed to ride him. He wasn’t going to put anything into this. We hopped over the warm up a few more times until I knew what I had.

Then I started over the bigger fences. He was tough to ride because he wasn’t taking me to the fences. I’m used to that. Even when he is being good and not charging the fences he is still taking me to them. He wasn’t being bad, he just wasn’t him. He wasn’t excited, happy, or enjoying himself at all.

Finally, I went for the bigger of the four fences that were set up. A 4’4″ vertical. First attempt, he hit with his hind legs. It wasn’t a great distance, and he wasn’t about to try to get out of it. Second attempt was better, but still no try.

The third time he did what I asked going to the fence, got close, cleared it, and landed nicely.

Good boy.

Frankie’s heart wasn’t in it today. That makes me sad. Yesterday’s rain-soaked event really took it out of him. I think he is a bit burned out from all the dressage and then going to that horrible place of wetness. I almost feel like he thinks he was being punished.

Frankie loves to jump, he always has. Even when he’s being bad, he’s having a good time jumping. Even if he’s knocking rails down, he’s usually at least enjoying pissing me off. Today he was doing his job mechanically. Going through the motions. I felt like I was experiencing bad marriage pains in riding Frankie today. You know—we liked each other during the ride, but the love just wasn’t there.

It really made me sad.

I’m going to give Frankie the next two days off. Hopefully he will be so bored work will be fun again. I’ll go out and spend some quality non-riding time with him. I’ll groom him, give him a banana, and hopefully re-kindle our relationship. Time for a little breather.