camina 11

It was another good day at Cheerio with Camina. She had a lot of distractions this morning with people watching. But we got right to work on the saddling and flexing. We then did some more warmup with lunging at a walk and switching directions. I took her over to the wall and did the sending exercise several times then we walked the rail and worked on disengaging and sending. After a few minutes of this we did the c-pattern/falling leaf exercise down the middle of the arena. I put the long line on her and had her doing walk, trot transitions in both directions. Then we moved up to canter. What I am looking for in her is a softness in her transitions from walk>trot>canter and back down. My goal wasn't to get her tired out but to have her really paying attention to me to see what I will ask her next. She did very well at this. So we got the bridle on her and had her flex laterally then put the long reins on her and ground drove her around the arena. She is not mouthing the bit nearly as much as she did yesterday. She is carrying it much better. We did some starts and stops and direction changes all around. This went well so I took the long reins off her and got on. I flexed her first and then had her move off at a walk then would bend her to a stop and disengagement. We did this in both directions. She did very well and is getting better at carrying me. I was pleased. She has a calmness about her that seems to show that she is mentally handling things well. I rode her around the arena and stopped her several times then dismounted and quit for the day.