Awesome times THREE!

I had a busy busy day today, and of the three real sessions I had (I played with a 4th, but only to keep him occupied while the others ate their grain) were absolutely FANTASTIC. I haven't felt that productive with my herd in a VERY long time. I played with Crest, Cricket, and Prin, and I think the easiest way to summarize will be to just go down the list.


Crest:
I've been trying really hard to get into a consistent schedule with Crest, since he thrives best when he's played with often. So, since the last time I blogged, we've actually played twice, not including today. Anyway, we've been playing with really progressing in the patterns. The ground was too hard by the time I got them last fall, so I only got to introduce them to him.

All I can really say is HOLY CRAP, this horse is a speed-demon learner. I knew that about him from the start, but he's now blowing my mind more and more. I started playing with these patterns at L2 two days ago, and today, he was consistently offering me L4 with everything. He kept pulling flying changes out of NOWHERE, he was cantering like I've never seen before, and his circles were GORGEOUS, and amazingly rhythmic!

After being thoroughly mind-boggled by Crest's ground play, I decided to hop on and do some stuff. We started out just walking around and playing with walk-halt transitions, which he did flawlessly. We toddled around the playground a bit, w/t/c and playing with obstacles, and then I somehow got the idea that we should play with turns on the haunches. It started out a little bit rocky, being that it's physically challenging for him, but we played through it slowly and persistently, and by the end, I was getting some LOVELY pivots, and twice got what I think were pretty high-quality spins. He's truly a very athletic horse, he just needs proper guidance, etc.

Cricket:
Poor Cricket is going through some difficult things right now. I'm just starting to get her back into riding, something that hasn't been kind on her in the past. She's basically been taught nothing but to resist, and unfortunately, has been punished for a lack of understanding. The result is a very skeptical, very unsure, very unconfident horse in all aspects of riding. I've spent the past couple weeks getting her friendly to the concept of being saddled. I pulled out Prin's original saddle for the job. It's a cute little general purpose Trainer's brand saddle, pretty narrow, but has decent weight distribution throughout the panels, which is why I chose it. Coupled with the Theraflex, it does fairly well.

Anyway, today, for the 3rd day in a row, we've played with bridling. Cricket must have evaded bridling really well in her days prior to my riding, because she knows practically every trick in the book to get away from it now. Today went fairly well though, we only had to "discuss" yielding to poll pressure for about 3 minutes, as opposed to the 15 and 5 we spent the past two days.

Once we got bridled, I hopped on, and proceeded to play with fluid rein. I've got her in the confidence snaffle because of the rough handling she's had in her mouth previously. Three days ago, When I'd get on, she'd turn her neck inside-out to get away from any sort of pressure on her mouth. Today, we made HUGE strides with fluid rein. Though a bit skeptical (and astounded!) that I really wanted her to stretch into the bit, Cricket finally got the idea, and we spend a half an hour walking and trotting around with Cricket's nose barely above the grass, exhaling and blowing almost every stride. Talk about a pressure release! It's going to be a long road, but she's going to make a LOVELY riding horse. I'll be continuing this journey, so keep checking back :)


Prin:
Today's session with Prin will be dubbed successful simply because it was short, sweet, and I totally blew my horse's mind. I had originally planned to tack up and take her out for a long trot up the road, but after I heard gunshots coming from Dusek's, our neighbors up the road (the 3 brothers shooting pigeons, no doubt), I decided that we'd better not. So, I hopped on bareback, and took her for literally a 5 minute ride. We cantered up the driveway, to the top of the hill, stopped, backed up, did a roll back, and cantered home. Once I got back, I took her to the tackroom and I groomed her from head to tail, gave her a cookie, and put her back. The look of astonishment on my horse's face was fantastic, and I know I left her wanting more because she followed me along the fence line as I walked out.


So. All in all, a VERY productive day. I love spring, I love my horses, and my life is going very well. I'll hopefully get the camera out this week sometime if it's not too nasty (they're predicting freezing rain/snow on Tuesday), and will keep progressing along.

Keep it natural, and I'll post again soon :)

Hmmm...how INTERESTING

Wow...well, interesting is a bit of an understatement when it comes to describing my session with Prinny tonight.

Some people who will read this know that since getting home from my trip back east, Prin's been anything but what I left her as. She's been sullen, sour, unmotivated and unwilling, and physically, she's lost her topline and all collection we had at one point. It's unbelievable how she could have possibly back tracked that far in 11 days off, but she did, and I've been struggling to stay patient with it, since it's about 6 months of work completely shot.

So anyway, I brought out my tools tonight, and decided that I wanted to use my 45' line for some reason (I've been on the 22' line for the past 3 days) and that was the first weird observation, and big change. As SOON as I snapped up to the 45' line, Prin was well on her way back to being her old self, the playful, snotty, mild LBE that I left when I went back east. I KNEW there was a reason I used that previously, and now I realize that it's because that 22' line was too restrictive. And boy did Prin tell me that.

Starting out, Prin and I just played around a little bit with transitions at the full 45 feet, trying to refine to something close to quality. After 3 or 4 tries, she was doing canter/halt at about a phase 2, which I was pleased with, so I moved on to some zone 5 stuff, and she and I had a bit of a moment, in the negative sense of the word. Not going to lie, I was being a bit rude (asking for too much, too hard) and she fired a warning kick at me, which I totally deserved, but it startled me, none the less, being that Prin is not the type to deliver feedback that bluntly. But I guess that's good, I, in fact, CAN'T get away with murder anymore. But, boy did someone hide her hiney quickly when she realized how surprised I was!

Anyway, we played a bit more to get back on a good track, then I bridled up and hopped on, and here's the best way of putting it. Prin came TO the bridle today. She didn't wait for ME to get friendly with it, she came TO IT. Her longitudinal flexion was ASTOUNDING (I did 6 months of fluid rein/snakey bends with the confidence snaffle last year, and I didn't see results to come NEAR this) I don't think I could have taken her nose off the ground had I wanted to, and the power in her hind quarters, and the lifting in her back combined to make the most incredible ride I've ever had I think. My horse is now living up to her warmblood act, and I'm THRILLED! Pray that Kansas City goes through for me, will you? I really want to show not only Linda, but Farrah just how far she's come!

I put her on the small rings for a little while and cruised around with our power steering and vertical flexion, and I can't help but think that Parelli must have made the Cradle this complex on purpose, so that the result would be all the more satisfying. I'm thrilled, and to my mentors who have gotten on my case for not smiling while I ride, you should have seen me tonight. I had a grin from ear to ear, doing FINESSE! HA!

Life is GOOD!

Trail riding and Fluid Reins

Had one very long, busy horsey day today. Got up to the farm around 2 O'clock with every intention of reading for most of the afternoon (BLOODY HOT! DANG!!)and then riding in the evening. Well, I got out there, and Cricket, my poor poor Cricket, was solidly REFUSING to use her lame leg. So, slowly and carefully, I put her, Princess, and Knight in the north paddock, and let them graze, and then called Virge, who, thank GOODNESS is home now. From what I described, Virge said it sounded like Cricket might have a deep absess in her foot. So, this afternoon involved lots of running around looking for epsom salt and hot water to soak feet in. Hopefully she gets better after this treatment.

But now for something completely different, related to the headline of this blog. I rode Cresty tonight on a trail ride. This new saddle has given me OODLES of new reasons to ride him, and I'm not regretting a second of it! The past few rides I've put a bridle and confidence snaffle on him so we can start actually erm, PROGRESSING into our riding. And I'm finding, go figure, that part of our riding issue is caused by Crest's complete and total BOREDOM with what we've been doing. He gets out on trail and he's completely different...he goes "OOH! This is INTERESTING! New places! New things! SPOOKY MAIL BOXES! New sights!" Once he settles into a rhythm though, I've found that I'm able to start some fluid rein concept, and that he GETS IT. Gets it so well, in fact, that I had Mikaela hop on and ride him tonight...she rode him about 3/4 of the distance home, and she did fluid rein, as well as some sideways and back, and she DID NOT stop marvelling about how well he's doing once. And this is coming from MICKEY...Who isn't the most confident rider on an energetic horse. So YAY!

Pix and updates to come soon! Sorry, I'm bad, but hey, I'm BUSY!