Springtime with Horses!

It's not really Spring, but what a nice weekend it was! The nicest we've had in months. I got to spend lots of time with horses.

Saturday, I showed Gemini to a young lady named Krista. He did great for her and I think she really liked him. That's the first person to come see him. Jen and Amy also came over with Cowboy and Jefe to play in my arena and I was going to ride Cowboy while we trail rode. It turned out to be windy and cold and the trail ride didn't happen. I also had Marcy on Jeffrey and I was trying to get something going with Holly. Holly had a hard time coming off of adrenaline and I spent so much time that I never rode Cowboy. I'm going to try to ride Cowboy this week - that horse is very cool.

Dave came over and we put Jeffrey in the round pen. I showed Marcy and Dave how to play the Stick to Me game and they seemed to really understand it. Jefffrey knows nothing about sticking to his human. He only knows how to do a specific job that he was taught by his previous owner. He's a nice horse - an LBI - and he's going to do the bare minimum. He tolerates Dave's riding pretty well, but he's going to get less and less patient with Dave's hands. He's in one of the most severe bits you can put on horse, with a chain chin piece to boot. Jen and Amy joked that the headgear shouldn't be allowed on my property. Maybe they're right.

Then, Marcy, Dave and I hit the trail. The wind had settled and the sun was out. We did the 8 mile loop at a pretty good pace. Zarah did not want to leave home and I need to work on that with her. I am worried about pushing her past her threshold and ruining her trust in me. That will make some of the L3 stuff very difficult.

I stood on Zarah's back bareback and bridleless! Yeah! Another task bites the dust.

Sunday, Jen and Amy came about 10:30am and we rode about 5 miles on the trail. Amy was more nervous than I expected her to be. I was a little surprised. She handled it well and she's not letting it stop her! About 1pm, Tammy and Chuck showed up and we did a 4 hour group lesson focusing on L2. It's a lot to cover and I thought we'd get to more tasks than we did. I had a great time with it. I'm happiest when I'm messing with horses and teaching others how to get things going. It's my place to be.

Zarah needs some undemanding time from me this week. I'm pushing her too hard. She's a fragile flower, a true RBI now that I'm paying attention and figuring things out. She can be LBI, but RBI is where most her characteristics lie. She's great.