A new adventure.

I got a call from my trainer, letting me know that she was willing to let Jesse be trailered off of the property for another try on him. I called her back at the beginning of this week, and we settled on a Thursday lesson.
We picked up my trainer on the way to Jesse's home at 5:15, so she could help us load him. (Good thing she was with us!) We wrapped his front legs, and went to the trailer. This horse was stubborn. He would go up the ramp, halfway in, and then back out. We kept trying different things to get him in, and then called in the grain, and eventually it worked. We left the property at 5:55, a whole 40 minutes trying to get the little booger onto the trailer. The ride to my trainer's is short, only about 5 minutes. As we pulled up, and stopped in her driveway, Jesse started acting up, almost doing a piaffe in the trailer. When we got him off, he was drenched. He was so nervous in that trailer that he was (seriously) dripping sweat onto my arms as I unwrapped his legs!
I sweat scraped him, then tacked him up, because there was almost no use in brushing the poor, frightened boy. He was pretty good tacking up, although was a bit excited, because I don't think he's been off of the property in over 9 months. I walked him down to the indoor, tightened the girth, and hopped on up. For the first 5 minutes, we walked around the indoor, and checked out the dressage letters, and the pink plastic flamingos, and the albino one too. He wasn't too thrilled about getting too close to the flamingos, but got over them within a time or two around the ring. (by the way, I was prepared with spurs on, and had a dressage whip waiting if I needed additional encouragement to go forward :D ) After a few laps, and once he settled in, I asked for the trot, and got a nice response out of him. He seemed a lot more springy and excited to go forward, which I found a bit relieving... I was liking Jesse a lot more! He would still suck back in the corners, going into the short side, and to solve that, I asked for a larger trot down the long side, so that if he sucked back in the corners, he'd still be moving through the short side.
When I asked for the more forward trot down the long sides, he would seek contact with my hand and accept the bit (although not on a frame, which was fine by me for now!) and would pick up his back. I wasn't sure if he was trying to buck, because I don't know him or his habits all that much, but it seemed like he was happy, and stretching through his back (Great!).
I had him do some circles, and through the second half I'd be kicking him to keep the momentum. We also did some serpentines, which were OK, only because he didn't quite want to move forward through them. After 5 or so minutes, we gave him a little breather, and my trainer decided that we would see how he reacted to ground poles. She placed two ground poles next to each other, and I asked Jesse for a trot, and kept my leg on him, as he trotted happily over them and he didn't even bat an eye! This was getting better by the minute!
(My trainer and I were unsure about Jesse's background in jumping, because she had talked to Jerry, who said he had never seen this horse jump before)
So after we went over the two poles, my trainer put a third pole on top of the two, and made a little pyramid of poles, and we trotted over that. He was great again! so, for the next time around, she put standards next to the poles, and made and eensy weensy cross rail. Jesse saw it, and seemed excited and happy. He pricked his ears, flicking them back and forth, listening to my aids, and went over it nicely! We even got some canter after the pole! She raised the cross rail two holes (now it was only eensy) and he jumped HUGE over the cross rail, and was such a good boy (did I mention I was in my dressage saddle?! Ouch!) I got a little canter out of him, and he came back nicely to the trot when asked. He was such a good boy the whole time, that I was just getting to like him more and more!
After I cooled him down I hopped off, and hand walked him, ready to pop him one in the nose if he tried to take a chunk out of my arm with his teeth. I think he;s starting to get the message around me, that nipping is not OK. I would turn my head and he would try to go for it, and I would turn my head back towards him, and he would throw his head in the opposite direction. Silly boy!
After he was done, he went to go get a bath! Brought him over to the washing area, and cross tied him. It took him a while to get onto the rubber mats, because they wer lumpy and black and had holes and rocks in them and were seriously, oh so scary. we eventually walked him around and through the back and it was all good. turned on the water, watered him down, and he was good! Stood like and angel, althoguh was a bit fidgety at first. Didn't even look at the hose as I went in front of him and it snaked by his toes. Woo! Scraped him off, and then went back to the trailer to wrap and load.
Wrapping took 5 minutes, loading took 40 again. I tried loading him this time, and he ran through me a couple times (Note to self, when teaching this horse to load, use a chain.) so we had my trainer get him on. When we got him on, she didn't have enough time to grab the bucket out from the trailer, so it was almost under him while he was doing his little piaffe-like moves. and he was freaking out and had no time to tie him, so my dad went into the other side of the trailer, grabbed the bucket amongst flying legs(very brave man), and ran to the car and yelled our goodbyes out of the window, because once he's in you move (almost like a bank robbery or something, you grab the cash, and run before the cop comes, except in this case you run before the trailer flips. ;] )
Back at his home, we talked to his owner while we hosed him off again ( as he was drenched from the ride back) and talked about him a bit. Apparently, the reason he tries to bite as you tighten the girth is because at a show with his old trainer, he had ringworm, or something hurting at his girth area, and never forgot it. I asked her whether she had known if Jesse had ever jumped before, saying that we had talked to Jerry, and he's never seen this horse jump. She told us that she had never seen this horse jump, and had no idea if he'd ever jumped or seen a fence in his life. Interesting.
But for final notes for the day: Jesse will be coming to my house for a month or so trial, soemtime next week! I'm so excited! When he comes, I will share a ton of pictures!