Adventures With Horsemanship: LOADED HERSELF IN THE TRAILER!

LESSON 15/ RIDE #5/6: Flames Remedy (Annie) LOADED HERSELF IN THE TRAILER! Yes, you read that correctly. While prepping to head over to the local arena for a Spur of the Moment Ride, the horses were helping with lawn maintenance the front yard (we live in the country and the entire property is fenced).Ronan was loaded in first. As I was heading off to grab Argent Annie casually walked past me and then loaded herself in the trailer! She stood there looking at me like "well, hook be up and let's get going." It was the start of a really nice night with the horses.

We did some warm up exercises as usual and then worked a bit on Sending, Yielding the Forequarters and Circle Driving. She is getting better at these exercises and seems more confident. Interesting personality quirk: She does really well for the first few tries and then “chooses” to attempt to do something else (usually backing up). So we redirect that energy making the right thing easy and the wrong thing difficult (as Clinton likes to say). The period of redirection is getting shorter and shorter. We have not had her all that long and her world is VERY different now. Improvements are happening and we celebrate those wins!

Under saddle Annie did really well. We worked on Follow the Fence, Lateral Flexion. Yielding the Hindquarters, simple turns and One Rein Stops. She did good work. Because of her past experience her “go to” gait is a very athletic but smooth trot. She walks with good energy. Going into the lope is a bit of a struggle. We believe it is a lack of experience/lack of confidence thing. We also believe that her feet are a bit sore (shoes happen tomorrow) so comfort level is also a factor. All in all she did well for both Laurie and I (yes, she got to work with two different humans in the same session). She is shaping up to be a really nice horse and once we get her feet feeling great we know that her performance will improve. So far she is exceeding expectations and is working really hard! Tomorrow we see how she deals with the farrier and then Friday we head down to the L.A. area (Agua Dulce) for a weekend of horsemanship!

Lateral Flexion