Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Passenger Lesson with Gemini

After traveling for my uncle's funeral, a very tiring trip, I finally had the energy to get out with my equines. I'm trying to get Z's leg healed up and in the meantime, I have time to play with the other horses. I decided to halter Gem and do some things. I brushed him, sprayed him to keep the dumb mosquitos out of our way and we started the 7 games. Lots of great things going - great sideways! I used the 12 to help me do things on valium today. We practiced a slowww change of direction, subtle sends on the circle, nice yo-yos and great porupine yielding the ends.

A couple notes... we played the games tacked with a tight rear cinch and he never thought to buck. I asked for all gaits to be sure and nothing - no issues. Hmmm... Also, he didn't want to circle to the right and he kept stop at 12 o'clock when going to the right. I'll pay attention as our games progress.

I felt perfectly comfortable with the idea of riding him and I wanted to do some passenger lesson at the trot. So, I took him to the arena, practiced lateral flexion (OMG - what a huge improvement), moving the fore, back from my seat only and then we walked off. After a minute or two at the walk, we started our trotting lesson. I had my ipod to keep my relaxed and he went off trotting. I want our forward ask to be more soft and his response more positive to my forward cues. I think he just gets lazy in the arena and I need some impulsion to get anything done.

He found any excuse to transition down and needs work with maintaining his gait and understanding that he has a job. We'll keep building that.

We finished up when he took us to the tarp in the middle of the arena. He's doing great and I think it's getting to the time to start asking him to adventure off the property with me.

I got his front feet trimmed after our session. Tomorrow, the hinds. Nice night. Mosquitos are stupid.

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