Some time with Z and a nice FLC!

It's feeling like the right time to get back with Z and forge ahead with L3 Freestyle. She seems ok with the idea, too.

We started by brushing and tacking and headed to the new 2-horse straight load sitting on my property (my boarders trailer). I doubt she's ever been in a 2 horse straight load and she wasn't thinking it was a bright idea. She got most the way in and I moved on.

We played some games with the cavalettis. I asked her to go and stop over each one. She felt inclined to side pass, so I tried to quiet my energy as much as possible. She's a smart, smart horse. We played some quick games of stop and go over obstacles and quick sideways.

She seemed pretty right in the brain to me, so we went to the arena and got ready. I wanted to move the barrels from the rail and I asked her to come with me. She stuck right with me w/o a moment of hesitation. She followed me while I went and fetched all three barrels. Good girl!

Then, I got on and started with corners. She had a lot of go, so we cantered and galloped hard until she wanted to slow down. Then, we tried to play with follow the rail, cloverleaf, canter-walk transitions... until her GO button came back to life. She had so much go today! Kendall came out and we started to work on jumping. Z doesn't care too much for jumping, but she actually seemed to enjoy it today! She was pulling towards the jumps after a while. We did squeeze game over a 2ft with a turn and face each time. She got more and more confident and so did I. She would come out of the jump excited and we cantered around until she was ready to transition down.

At one point, we went for a flc and got the most beautiful and soft flc I've ever felt (on purpose). It was so cool! I laughed and hopped off and rewarded the heck out of her. I got back on and we did some more jumps, cantered large circles and ended with herding the dogs. She was finally getting the hang of chasing dogs down at the end. I'm thinking to buy a cow or two and chase them around. Something with no horns and small. They're such messy animals, not sure I want to do that.

We ended at a good point with a final ask into the 2-horse. The saddle's stirrups hit the walls and I think she feels that resistance. I'll have to try it w/o the saddle tomorrow.

It was a great session with my mare! Feels good to be getting this close to finishing L3! It seems that Gemini may not get leased out - my leasor is still looking for a free lease horse. We'll see. I still think I'll take Cowboy through next. I like him a lot.

Need to get some time with Miss Nina this week!