Camina 21

Had to take a break from my studies to record what happened today with her. She is just about predictable and that is a good thing in my book. But I never take that for granted.  After all, they are a living, breathing, animal that operates on instinct. Anyway, I worked on the lead to just warm her up and she was nice and shaped on the circle she was walking and then trotting. Her eye and ear was on me and I could tell she was bent as she was supposed to be. I moved her over to the wall. Well, first I began to drive her walking next to the saddle with just the lead and had her doing disengagements 360 degrees and then leg yielding. Then I took her to the wall and had her side passing a few steps down the wall. I took the halter off and had her working at liberty with me. She took to this much faster than yesterday. She did go down the arena, but I could tell she wasn't leaving me and just kept up the trot and repeatedly looked at me. We did some figure eights to change directions and sides and some complete circles at the trot. Then I let her stop and catch me. We played this game a few minutes. Then I put the bridle on and got on. She stood while I flexed her and then we moved off at the walk. We are still working on following her nose and yielding to the bit or finding contact on the bit. There was some talking going on between the horses outside and she decided she needed to horn in on the conversation. Don't you just hate it when someone interrupts you? So I put her feet to work. I disengaged her in place 5-6 times in a complete circle with her front foot planted. Then we went the other direction. Then I let her walk out of it. That was my way of saying she had no business talking out of turn like that. Well the talking was still going on among the others so I got her trotting so that she wouldn't be tempted to speak up again. You know, if you keep a kid busy they won't have time to get in trouble or be bad. Just a thought. We must have trotted for 15 minutes or so. That was the most she had ever done and she did very well. She wanted to stop or slow down a few times, but I figure I am leading her so we will quit when I say. During this trot I let her go straight down the wall and had her cross the middle, go in a large circle, change directions and so on. When it was time to slow down I cooled her down with some turns against the wall at a walk to teach her to turn on the forehand, doing what is called a roll back. She backed pretty good for me today too. We still have a long way to go, but we are making progress.