CTC #3

Rain, hail, Z calm and then fell apart. Boots rubbed. 8 miles. Yelled at safety rider.

This was our 2nd CTC and it was a big one! There were 3 times as many riders as my first CTC. I went with my good friend Tammy and she drove. Z was a little unsure about getting in a strange trailer, but I gave her a few minutes and she loaded up. Z was so calm when we got there! She was thoughtful, calm, and ready to take it on.

The obstacles were much more challenging than our first CTC. One obstacle was to go through a bunch of strings hanging from a rod in a tree. Tied to the strings were shiny aluminum pie plates. I had no idea how Z would feel about those because I've never, ever asked for anything like that. She went through, but very unconfidently. Something to work on at home! Another obstacle had an umbrella hanging above a culvert. We had to pick up the umbrella and hang it on the other side of the culvert. Wow! Pretty challenging. We had to do cantering on the correct lead, backing up a hill, carry obstacles on our saddle (slicker, rope, hat, etc...).

This was a great CTC! Very challenging and well worth my time and effort. We got caught in a hail storm at about obstacle 4 and my horse changed when the storm started to blow in. She became fearful and "up" and we fell apart on one of the obstacles. I don't expect that we did very well against our competition, but I had a great time challenging myself and my horse.

When I got home, I did a session with Tina. I tacked her up and we played on the ground in the arena. I don't spend a lot of time with her in the big arena, so I want to start building her up in this large and flat space. We typically ride and play in the round pen and in the playground. She was fine, though. We did a lot of cantering on line with all that space and no obstacles in the way.

I mounted her after the ground work and we worked at a trot for a while. I'm looking for her to maintain the trot I ask for (surprisingly, she falls out of the trot quickly). I'm asking for her to turn in the trot and change directions. We're doing figure 8's and I'm also building the halt from my seat as well as a few strides of back up (increases the halt). We also started working on isolation of the ends (turning on the fore and the hind). She's a little bracey with this maneuver so we'll keep building the understanding.

She's calm and learning wonderfully.