Transitions and UDT

Today was about Z.  I had gotten all 4 horses ridden and exercised yesterday, so today I wanted to focus on my main development project, Miss Zarah.  I went out and caught her with ease.  I stood about 30 feet away and she came to me.  Of course, so did Rain and Cowboy and Gemini and Nina...  You get the picture.  But, Z was first and she knew I had come to see her.  I gave her a cookie to reward her efforts in catching ME!  

I stood with the herd for a bit, checking everyone over, inspecting Z's leg wound, looking at Cowboy's fly spots (don't know why, but flies LOVE Cowboy more than any other horse).  Cowboy has a small area under his chest where flies congregate.  I have to keep him a fly sheet pretty much all the time.  

I then walked Z up to the barn, gave her a little grain, some alfalfa (Rain got some, too) and took her to the arena.  I wanted to pull some weeds and hopefully she could eat some weeds while I pulled them.  She was a little worried about not being with the herd and I was at the far end of the arena.  She came to be with me a couple times, but never stayed.  She wanted to be close to the herd.  I pulled weeds along one side of the arena (a lot of work - geesh!), then as I walked to Z she walked to me - almost as if to say, I'm so glad you survived that side of the arena and now you're back.  She doesn't have a ton of confidence in herself - she seeks it from her leader.  

I then tacked her up and we set off for a little ground work and riding.  We practiced sideways towards - which is tough because then everything she does is sideways towards for a bit.  We did some bridleless riding in the front, weaving in and out of trees.  We worked on bridleless disengagement, moving the fore and just generally warming up.  I rode her in the front pasture a bit and then decided to ride the horse pastures with her.  We've never done that and I imagine she was interested in the plan.  We rode all three along the rail, practicing canter walk transitions, and following the rail.  Her canter was soft and smooth!  I was really pleased.  A lot of times, her canter is very strung out and she's moving fast.  I had some nice soft moments of suspended cantering today - very nice.

After a while, we simply walked around and I tried to make a friendly game of it.  We went to the herd and moved them around a bit (good for Z's confidence).  We crossed the water on the track (it's half-way up her cannon bone!) and just generally mosied around.  Then, I took her to the front for UDT - letting her eat grass while I chilled.  She sidled up to me so that her belly was nearly in my lap.  Weird!  I tried to scratch it but it didn't seem to be giving her an enormous amount of pleasure, so I just sat with her ribs in my face.  LOL - she then took a nap.  So funny...

We just hung around, me trying to move more dirt for my tractor tire pedestals and just general clean up.  It had been a few hours of time together and I decided to head in and clean the house before Steve and kids come home.  I put a fly sheet on her, another coating of Dermafas (great stuff for wound healing), and set her free in the stall.  

She hung around, checked the stalls for yummy morsels, then made her way out to the herd.  It was a really nice time with my levels mare and I enjoyed her immensely.