It was true she had once dumped a boyfriend for buying her diamond earings, after she'd had the audacity to ask him for her first guitar as a birthday gift.
A.J. also admitted she felt the problems she was experiencing at the mounting block were her own fault. In the groundwork phase of his unsoundness during the continued training, she'd made such a point of turning to face him, from the shoulder, and make him back up. The movement was supposed to strengthen the stifles and was good also for his manners and attention. But nowadays, when she was back to riding him, each time she asked him to stand for her to mount, he was misunderstanding. Or, perhaps he was. With him, it was also quite likely that he was simply resisting. For naughtiness, or physical unsoundness.
Either way, as his personal physical therapist and trainer, she needed to fix it.
Today, she'd whipped him twice, each time as a command to stop or at least to move forward to address his unwanted backwards course. And then, he'd stood - sort of - enough that she get on, and make him stop moving long enough to feed him a sugar cube. Such a smart horse, so motivated by food, she was hoping to see improvement next time.
There was a helper willing to participate in helping him to figger out the expectation on Saturday morning. AJ was keen for the effort.
