Groan

It was a cold pouring rain when I arrived at the farm. Dalia was sopping wet out in the field. Rebekah helped move Dalia into the indoor arena while Jenis was locked in a stall to hopefully dry out before the people came that wanted to try out Dalia. We worked a bit on Dalia standing quietly at the mounting block as Rebekah explained Dalia was not good with that yesterday. She is a good mare picking up what was expected pretty quickly. Then it was wait and wait and wait. The customers arrived shortly before noon and by that time Dalia was more than ready to head back with the herd. She needed some convincing that not only was she not going back it was time to work. Well this did NOT go well. The lady is a dressage rider and wanted to take up contact, Karin has Dalia going in a straight bit with no contact. Every time the lady would take up contact Dalia would stop and start to back up. It only got worse from there. We brought Jenis into the arena and tacked her up, then off Rebekah went on Jenis but Dalia wouldn't follow. By this time the rider was nervous and Dalia was feeding off those nerves getting such mixed signals that she refused to go forward. I felt bad about them driving down from Chicago on my recommendation that Dalia was really doing well. It was a waste of over 4 hours for them and a waste of 3 hours for Rebekah and I. We were cold and miserable by the time they left.