We've been playing around with jumping 55 gallon barrels during our groundwork sessions. The horses have been getting better at it so we thought we would try it under saddle. HUH?!?!
We had a really nice ride Saturday. We loped for 5 minutes trying to get her back in condition. It is still cool here and I didn't want to work up too much of a sweat. We did a lot of transitions and Jessie seem to be listening well.
Sunday we set up the back area with props. We put the barrels, cones, pipes out and went to warm up. We did some groundwork first and worked on jumping the barrels and did our other exercises like C-pattern, backing up, etc. After tacking up, we did a little warm up and Ranae took Dusty over the barrels. He did pretty good. She went over a couple of times in one direction. Then it was our turn. I trotted Jessie by the barrels a couple of times and she seemed to want to jump, but I steered her away (approach & retreat). Then we trotted up and she went right over. I must admit the landing was a bit rough. I'm not sure where my body is supposed to be, but I'm fairly certain it's not where I was at the time. We tried it a couple of times in each direction and she actually seemed to enjoy (accept) it fairly well. After about 40 minutes of playing around we went out on a long trot circling our usual haunts. There is little to compare with the feeling you get when you ask your horse to do something challenging and they come through.
It was a good weekend.
2 comments:
Where are the photos?
Sometimes you're just having too much fun to take pictures. And, not being exactly sure how it would turn out, we did not want any photographic evidence ;>)
Post a Comment