Ok…………New Approach…..CHEAT dang it.

It has come to my attention…..thinking a lot the last few days…that I am stubborn and all too often realize it long after the realization could have helped me. I was thinking about my crummy sessions with Rose, and what it was I was trying to accomplish with her at that time. It seems to go bad when I am practicing my audition. So why do I do it? DUH….. Because I want to pass L3. So why do I have to do it with Rose? I don’t. But I want to. She is/was my levels horse before the accident. But why? Because she is the only one who CAN do OLL3. I put all the weight on her shoulders. Why? Because SHE is so cool, and smart, and already taught her all this stuff. It seems reasonable to me that it should be easy with Rose. Why isn’t it? That is the million dollar question for sure.


As I was running through this list of questions to my self, and it brought me back to all the years I spent trying to get assessed L1, way back in the day….green pack. I really didn’t want to cheat in any way and wanted to do it with my first ever, pure natural horse TigerLily. I don’t know where I got the idea using Snookie was cheating anyways. My own limitation/rules, not PNH’s. Cantering was all I had left when TigerLily began to have complications from her disease. I turned to Good ole Snookie. But she refused to get in the trailer the Parelli way. I spent months on this. Broke down and signed up for a clinic. But now, the program changed. Start over. Lily was better by then, so stubborn me, decided I HAD to do it with her. I had the whole thing taped, minus one task, on my computer and my computer crashed. Lost…..LOST I tell ya. Then Lily began to have complications again, so I found a way to buy Rose back from the lady I re-homed her with. I spent the next year trying to have the courage to canter her. By this time, I was thinking to my self, that it was crazy that I wasn’t just using Snookie. So I began taping my Level 1 (red pack) guidelines still pretty demanding, I wasn’t satisfied with a couple of tasks, so was in the process of re-taping those, but also started the cantering with Rose. BAM car accident. By the time I was in good enough shape to tape the couple tasks, ……program changed AGAIN!  I gave up on taping long ago, and figured I would do it once, at the end, with Rose, when I made it all the way through the program.

So here I sit, post car accident, mind frame still in previous program. Wanting to become a PP and needing to pass the levels to do so.  Expectations of a level of quality once required. But maybe they have changed. Am I being stubborn AGAIN? I thinks so. Cha’Cote is probably a perfect “current” level 3 standard. Minus trailering, cantering and lead from the tail. It never really occurred to me to teach him those things and tape it with him. Well it did, but again…..STUBBORN. I assumed he would never let me in zone 5 AND hold his tail at the same time. But he did. He learned it in one session. How great is THAT? He is going in the trailer now. He is cantering now. He is great at the weave. So why would using him for OLL3 be cheating? It’s NOT. But just try and get THAT through my thick head. So the plan is this…..I am going home tonight and taping OLL3 with Cha’Cote. Just to see what happens.

Savvy On

Michelle