Monday, June 9, 2008

I didn't get to ride Thursday night. Friday night we worked on the yielding/bending exercise and a few other things just messing with her.

Saturday afternoon we went on a long ride and did a lot of trotting and loping. Most of it in a straight line. I would do the exercises we had been drilling on every time she was distracted or wanted to go her own way. It had a pretty good effect on her. It was almost like she was saying, "Oh, no not that again!" And, she was getting lighter and lighter. We ran into a coyote hunting on our way home. Usually the just run from the horses. This one stood there looking at the rabbits that we were flushing and he let us get pretty close. The horses didn't seem to mind. It was a little unnerving to just ride by with him only about a 100 feet or so from us. Wish I had had my camera.

Sunday we set up some barrels in a pattern. Our neighbors are going to cross fence their pasture soon. They were out of town so this seemed like a good time to try it. First we just walked around the barrels, then we trotted, then we tried going as fast as we could (which wasn't that fast). After that I just trotted Jessie around the barrels as more of an exercise variation to the bending exercise we had been working on.

We didn't spend more than 20 minutes doing the barrels before we headed out on the trail. We went the opposite direction from Saturday's ride and continued to work on long trotting, gait changes, and bending. We even loped a couple of circles once we got to an open area and Jessie was greatly improved. Her pace has slowed and she was much straighter going to the right.

The ferrier was here this morning. Her bare feet are holding up pretty well so it was just a trim and a shape. I may give her tomorrow off just because she is usually a bit tender right after a trim.

2 comments:

Tuff e Nuff said...

I love the new pictures! You need to tell me how you did that!

So are you going to run her in the NBHA later this year?

John Harrer said...

Not sure. Can a horse be too fast? ;>)

The slide show is fun. Blogger has a widget for it, and you need a flickr account with a photostream. Yeah, I know it sounds complicated but then, I did it so how hard can it be.

Here's a link for help:

help