Dang - it blew and blew on Tuesday. I wanted to ride, but it was so windy and miserable that I decided to just do some groundwork and ride the next day. I started with Gemini. I took him into the roundpen and we played at liberty. He was quite responsive! He was NOT the bucking horse from the other day. We played stick to me, all 7 games, touch the object and I had him mirror me a bit. His rear fetlock was still a little swollen from the bucking, so I tried to keep things light and easy. I took out my exercise ball and tried to teach him to push that around a bit. He was a little worried about the ball surprisingly, but he started to get the hang of it. I'll be doing more with him today.
Then Miss Z. We worked on backing straight, sending to the left and then went into the roundpen to try the ball out a little. She got the hang of it quicker than Gemini. She seemed to enjoy doing different things than normal. I've got to be careful with my direct thinking when I work with her. Her introverted nature makes her likely to get bored. We also worked on trotting and cantering sideways, but she seemed still sore from the 13 mile ride on Sunday, so I took it easy and didn't play long on this.
I put Cowboy in the roundpen afterwards, thinking I'd play with him and build his sideways game. I ran out of time however and he just got to move and roll out of his run. He's staying in his run until he goes home because he's taking big chunks out of Capaill's hide. He's riding many miles with me, so not worried about his exercise needs. He can manage to be in for another week or so.
Got lots of horse time and was very pleased. Having a lighter work week and squeezing everything I can out of it.
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