two rides in one day, wow!

Hey, I got the chance to ride both horses today. What a lucky break hey? I started with Raven. We didsome ground work at liberty. Which I might add she did pretty good at. Did some leg yields away and toward me. I have really been just refining my relationship with her. We did this for 30 min. on the ground then I got on and we started, as usual, with flexing and then backed a few steps without use of rein. Then, of late, I have been just moving her forward without any contact on the rein and just warm her up at a walk, then a trot, then a canter on a loose rein and stopping on loose rein. Then I start to get lateral and vertical flexion because I am warming up to trying to get the hips to move over easily with forward motion and vertical flexion so I can make my attempts at getting a haunches in. So we did some walk trot canter transitions with vertical flexion and did some tear drop exercises for shoulder control. I am just isolating each zone of the body from the others and moving them where I want. So finally, we got to the exercises attempting to get a haunches in. I think I got it a couple times going to the right but couldn't get it going to the left. She just kept wanting to speed up when I put my leg on her to move the hip over.Haunches in is like a car two tracking. You know the front end going on one track while, becaue the frame has been bent the hind end of the car follows another track. So it is with the horse. The front feet follow one track while the hind feet follow a slightly offset track. To get this the hind feet have to be real soft to move over and the front feet have to stay forward with the head vertically shaped to the inside of the bend. Thus the horse is moving in the direction of the open side of the C shape. This is called 'into the bend' whereas the easier movement to get is going away from the bend of the C. Anyway our time was almost up so I took the time to ask her to kneel several times and wouldn't let it count as a kneel unless she relaxed enough to let me stand up and wait five seconds then I let her up. My goal here is to be able to have her kneel and then I get on then ask her to get up.
Well on to Jake. he did real well I worked at liberty for a few minutes first, his choice, cause he didn't want to catch me. So I made him move his feet until he concluded he would be able to rest if he came and stood by me. That by the way is the secret to finidng peace and rest in life. Get close to God and when the trouble comes, the pressure of life is poured on you, just lean in to Him. Take His yoke upon you and He will give you rest. At least that is what Jesus says, Matthew 11:28-29. Anyway, Jake didn't take long before he decided he had enough of running if he didn't have to. So I saddled him while he stood nice and quiet. I did some ground work on a 22' line then at liberty, asking for change of directions, balanced turns on center, leg yields, and so on. Then it was time to Ground drive him. No mind you, Jake doesn't like things behind him so I was ready for a slight bit of kicking up of the dust, but low and behold he was better than Raven was. He did real good, went vertically soft right away, was doing leg yields and turns. Stopped pretty soft in my hands. So I worked at this about 10 min. Then wnet to riding him. While I was putting the bridle on and getting ready to ride, I thought to myself I should have the lady I am training a horse for next week ride Jake cause he doesn't buck. At least, he has never bucked on me. He bucked on my brother Mike before, but that was because his hat came off and the stampede string caught on his collar making the had float behind him like an out of control kite and Jake took to doing a running buck. But Mike stayed with him like a good hand. Then he also bucked once on my son in law when his wife handed him a coat. But Josh came off in well under the 8 second rule. That was years ago. Well, I got on and as with Raven was riding on a loose rein and decided to dare him to buck with my hat mimicking what Mike's did. Guess what, he called my bluff and took to bucking right off. It was a comical sort of thing though, I got a slight rein to bend him a little and let him continue to buck, even daring him to. I kept it up with the hat until he settled down. Then I did it on the other side, because a horse is two sided. Anyway, then I went to asking for softness and did some trotting on him. By that time our time was up and we quit.
What a great ride time though.