Mother's Day Rides!

This morning my wonderful husband gave me the gift of time with the horses, and so I spent the morning out at the barn! I pulled out Rocky first, hoping to ride him, but he was squinting his right eye - so I put ointment in it and groomed him really well, and put him back in his stall.

Next was Sweetie, of course. I really wanted to ride, so I took her out, groomed all of her itchy spots and otherwise, and saddled up for a nice ride. We did more trotting that we had last week, worked on bending on our turns, and cantered each direction briefly. Sweetie is always such a pleasure!

I promised Harlan I would work with Charlie, too. It has been about 6 months (or more) since she's been ridden, so he recommended I not ride her, but I took her bridle out with me just in case. I went ahead and put the saddle on for her groundwork - it's always a good experience just to have the saddle on.

When we got to the ring, we started out with some groundwork games, rubbing her with the carrot stick, asking her to move away from it, etc. But it was not long before Charlie decided she really wanted to move, so I sent her out and let her trot. Man, this mare is so big and powerful! She did a beautiful trot about 3 times around me then came in and calmed down. So I sent her out the other direction, and she again took off at the trot, went about 3 times around and came back to me. Now, both times I had not asked her to trot - I was only asking her to make a circle around me, did not give her any other cues at all. But Charlie felt it necessary to trot. I wondered if she was having a flashback to her training before we adopted her - they would take her out and lunge her at the trot both directions almost immediately - or at least, that's how they showed her to us the day we took her home. She finally calmed down enough so that she just walked each direction, and then I *asked* for the trot, which she willingly did. Now that she was listening to me more clearly, I decided to practice mounting.

Charlie, in the past, has not stood well when Harlan has gone to mount the first time. So I put her bridle on and took her over to the mounting block, gave her a firm "ho" and leaned on her a bit. I just took my time, making sure she would keep her feet still, which she did. She seemed to understand me clearly, so I went ahead and mounted up. She continued to stand very well, until she couldn't resist the grass blades coming up in front of her and stepped forward. So I asked her to move forward and we started walking. Charlie is a 17hh Belgian/TB mare, and very strong and stubborn through her neck. My goal was to get her to be more responsive to my rein cues. Sometimes, I had to pull very firmly until I got a response from her, but as soon as she turned her head the way I wanted to go, I released. We practiced turning, circles, figure eights, going straight, etc. A couple of times she wanted to move up into the trot without me asking, but I was quick to say ho and ask her to come back to the walk - she needs to learn to trot only when she is asked. Towards the end of the ride, she was becoming more responsive to my rein cues, I was able to make circles both directions easily, and so we quit on the good note.

Next, I played with Arwen again - she loved her grooming, and I took her to the ring without a saddle again. We played the games again, and she improved on all areas - including making a circle around me both directions. I even got her to go around me to the right twice around (an improvement from yesterday!). Again, my goal with Arwen is just to have her calm and not worry about anything. So I took her over to the mounting block and practiced me stepping up onto it until she stood still. She reminds me of my TB mare, Sweetie, who didn't want to stand still while mounting, either at first. I brought her closer to the block and climbed up. About half the time she would take a step back or forward to not be in the "mounting position" so to speak. But eventually, I got her to stand in the right place and leaned over her a few times. When she stood well for that, we quit for the day and she enjoyed another healthy grooming.

After that, I let everyone out and came inside to find the house sparkling, the kids eating their lunches, my lunch waiting for me, next to beautiful flowers on the table. :) Thank you, Sweetheart!