Thursday, September 16, 2010

two things

I have two things to write about today.
One, yesterday I rode Raven bridleless again. I did the same thing as before I warmed her up with a bridle handy if I needed it. Then I moved the gate, and went into the round and tied the gate without getting off, even taking the bridle off without getting off. Pretty good, huh? Anyway, I rode at the walk for a few minutes doing turns and stops etc. Then moved up to the trot and did similar things. Then up to a canter. I changed it up quite a bit. One caution I discovered is that sometimes just moving off the seat or leg can backfire a bit. She was doing good at moving her hip over with my leg, but then began to interpret it as go forward faster, so I had to keep slowing her down. I will probably go back to reinforcing/teaching this again with the bridle. Nevertheless, I just used a combination of inside leg and outside leg on the shoulder to get her to bend and move the hip over. I am after doing a spin without the bridle and a lot of bend in the neck. This is where getting real clear on what I want her to do is crucial. It is akin to Sharon taking my face in her hands, making me look at her eyes while she gives me the shopping list or some other really important set of instructions for fear that I will miss something and louse up the plan. Let me tell you, it has happened. You men know what I am talking about. Lately, though I have had to do that with her, especially if she has her IPhone in her hands.
On to the second thing.
I worked with Camina today. It was session #25.
I worked her from the ground getting a really good lunging session from her. I had her side passing down the wall really good too. Then I got on her and worked on getting her face in my hands, ie. a slight bend in her neck to the inside so I can see the corner of her eye. She was walking kinda lackadaisical so I pushed her up to a trot. But I had to really keep after her. I tell you this is one lazy horse. Anyway, I then decided to use a saddle string to spur her on and that did the trick. I had the best long trot on her yet. She just went for me and really started to respond to my leg and rein. She just needs to be told to up the energy a bit and she will do it. I probably trotted her a good 25 minutes, finally getting her to stay on the wall  no matter which direction we were going and to follow he nose real soft like. I walked her for the last 5 or 10 minutes to cool her down. Again, though, she has a really nice trot and is coming along real good.

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