Back to Work

Like a dieter back on the wagon, we are once again going back to what works for us. The last couple of mornings I've been getting up early and Jessie has delayed her breakfast so we could go back to work on Riding With Confidence II exercises.

I've realized that we needed to get MUCH better at the Bending at the Walk exercise. And the last couple of mornings we've been doing the Yield to a Stop and Yield and Bend exercises. We need to improve these because she just seems to want to pull me around wherever she wants to go.

It's a pretty quick workout. I spend more time getting ready to ride, moving horses, and tacking up than we get actual saddle time. It's about 45 minutes though and that's well worth it. Yesterday's workout was pretty messy. Even though I had a plan of what I wanted to do. Either my cues are all screwed up or she is one stubborn gal. I just kept reminding myself how lucky we are to be out playing horse and rider on such a nice morning.

This morning things went a little better. I took my spurs off and used a crop and she resisted a bit, but we worked through it. She seemed more responsive by the time we quit.

Tomorrow the girls go to Tehachapi for another lesson so Jessie and I are going for another long ride, maybe even out the the arena we went to last time. We'll be looking for another roping ;>)

My hope is to do the two early morning workouts in the small training area working on bending, then the Saturday and Sunday rides will be going out and doing a lot of long trotting and loping.