Day 19

Ok, what a beautiful day yesterday was to work with Raven. I decided to refine some abilities with Raven after watching the video on beginning to ride without a bridle. So I went back and covered some issues like turn on center and ground driving and getting better at that with her responsiveness to my feel whether it is asking her to go forward or stop or back up our leg yield. Then I spent the last 15 minutes of our time in the saddle working on stopping with my seat at the walk and trot and going forward. I want those a hundred percent of the time. So I just dropped my reins on the horn and using my seat asking to go forward and trot and back to a walk and a stop. When she was doing that ok I went up to trot and asking for a stop from a trot without using rein at all and then asking for a backup with my seat. She is getting real consistent, but I need to work on her following me with a flag stick in my hand and doing some more invisible round pen and ground school on the 4th level before I move to riding bridleless. I still have another 11 days to work on this and hopefully by the end of that time I will at least being riding a little bridleless, but there is much to do yet. It is a beautiful day out there today so I hope to get out there later this evening and work with her. I will let you know.