Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Frustrating, but still horse time

Left work early and was furiously trying to make my way to the barn. My daughter said to me, "Mommy, I want to ride too!". I love to hear this! I always ask her to ride with me and she typically turns me down lately. But today, it was her idea - how could I refuse her?

But, I really wanted to... I had a plan to get 3 horses moving and an 8-yr old joining me means not a lot will get done. I tried to just hurry.

I have a new saddle pad I'm trying so I started with Z. I tacked her up and we headed for the arena. I tacked up Rain for KK and she planned to ride around with me. I wanted to play with FLR and transitions. KK decided to just hang around and ride Rain without using her reins. That means Rain was right on our heels the entire time. That's just fine with me - I know KK is safe on Rain. Meanwhile, all the horses were out today and they were hanging around outside the arena. Deuce was barking, Kahli was barking, Oscar was annoying the cat, the cat was trying to follow us around in the arena... Aye yi yi...

I tucked the dogs into the barn and got back to it. Z was fantastic!! Our Spanish walk looks great! The spin is coming along and she's ready for full time liberty with that move! (so cool...) Her down transitions are getting light and easy - we worked on canter to walk and trot to walk. She seemed really, really happy in the new pad. It's the CSI saddlepad - showcut and it's perfect! (Thanks, Kim!). I've finally found the pad for us. The shims are great wtih velcro attached to stop any movement or slipping. Her hairs were perfectly flat and showed no signs of friction when I untacked her. I didn't ride her hard enough for a sweat since the nights are cold and I didn't want her wet. But I'm pretty sure sweat patterns are going to show uniformity when I ride her hard enough.

A good time with my daughter, a trial in a great new saddle pad, and some good training time. I spent a few minutes with KK on ground work to help her learn to be safer leading these big horses around (Rain is 16hh and KK is a little 8 yr old).

Trying to make my way back out there for some young horse training yet tonight.

1 comment:

Alice said...

I enjoyed picturing the menagerie accompanying your session. :-) Especially the cat--brave soul!

Your comments about the fit of the saddle pad were very informative also. Glad you've found something that will work well!