Thursday, August 27, 2009

t18

Hey, Had a good day yesterday. It has been raining here so my round pen doesn't have good footing. Not a good place then to have a horse moving fast in a canter or even a fast trot. So I kept her in her own pen. It is higher ground and sandy. It was actually good training for her and me. We didn't have the round pen to keep us in a circle I had to keep her in one on the lunge. She is moving her feet real good from the ground. Her back up, disengaging and shoulders over are becoming real smooth and as fast as I want them. He disengaging is really working good as she is learning to keep her eyes on me. I lunged her a few times working on transitions, but I had to keep bringing her back into the circle. She got a little feisty only because of confusion. She was trying to figure out if the tug on the line was for a stop or change of direction. So we had to work on that a bit. However I spent most of the time on her back walking in circles, disengaging. Then we moved up into a trot, with not much compulsion. I just double kissed to her and she started. We trotted alot, mayb 25- 30 min. Not much disengaging, just enough to make sure she will do it. also the 1 rein stop. Then I started to ask her to lope. She didn't want to and so would show me that by throwing her head, trying to buck a little, It was never an all out rebellious buck. Besides I had one rein to stop her. I got her to lope in both directions, not good, not what I want, but when she gave me 3 good strides I disengaged her and let her stop. Believe me it took a while to get that. One of the things she would do is just stop, so I really had to get after her a couple times to move forward. This is where it would really be nice to have a partner on the ground who knew what they were doing to move her and then I would just go along for the ride. Anyway, when she gave me the three strides I decided to stop and quit her. We had been riding for close to an hour anyway and the session was about an hour and a half long. So it was a good place to stop. Then I walked her leading her around the arena a couple times working on her back up every so often. I am trying to get her to follow my feel, when I move she moves, when I stop she stops and keeps pace with me. I want her to keep slack in the line whatever direction I am going. She did pretty good for as long as I have been working with her. I am beginning to think she might just turn out to be a good horse. However, the panel is still out on this one. I haven't had her on the road or trails yet. She might move better out there, but maybe not too.
Gotta go. So have a great day.

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