A ROAD TRIP & COWS!

DAY 17 – ROAD TRIP and COWS!: Today our good friend, Method follower, member of The Downunder Brumbies and owner of California Natural Horsemanship has invited us to meet up at Ed Hughes Memorial Arena in Ione, CA. It is about an hour from our place but it is COVERED with really nice footing. Should be a fun morning! Ronan, Nike and I arrived about 11:00am and met with fellow Brumbies, Mike, Cynthia and Denise. Some Friends of Brumbies Kaylee and Mark were also on hand.

            Trailering. Nailed it. Loaded right up without a fuss.

            COWS! There were well over twenty head of cattle in the obstacle course area at the arena. Nike was NOT amused! Guess she had never seen cattle and this many not more than ten feet from one side of the arena was less than ideal in her mind. After much work she stood within feet of them but was not happy about it. Lots of moving her feet and getting her to focus on ME without hiding BEHIND me. That was a workout.

The arena is HUGE and one side is FILLED with large sponsor signs (the cows are behind that side of the arena). So, since she looked less than thrilled about them, THAT is where we did our groundwork! Lots of Sending and a review of the lessons so far. It was a work out for us both. In fact she got TWO ground work sessions and TWO riding sessions today thanks to the awesome Denise! We managed to really get Nike to move out with just a good squeeze, to follow her nose and to listen to leg cues. After the workouts were done Denise and I chatted about Nike. We both feel that sh was micro-managed under saddle. We came up with a plan to help get Nike to be responsible for her own pace, cadence and her own feet. Still, being a young minded four year old the sessions up to now have been pretty good and today was no exception. We saw clear improvement. Today definitely cemented in Nike’s mind that the days of being lazy and pushy are over. Not bad for our third ride!