GETTING BACK IN SHAPE!

FIRST “CONDITIONING SESSION” OF 2017

RANT ON: Personal “Pet Peeve” before we get started: Folks who contact us about Cearra (or any project horse) and ask to come see her and then when we give them options to do so we get a “that won’t work for me so just keep me informed.” Um, NO! It happened again. A “professional” contacted us saying she wanted to come see the horse. We asked some screening questions (we always do) and then gave her a variety of options. She then says “Tuesday.” Nothing else. Well he have another family coming out Tuesday and since we don’t want anyone to feel rushed we gave this “professional” some options. Got the above quoted answer. When we asked for some suggestions we got nothing. Sigh. Fired. Just because someone says they are a “professional” doesn’t mean they actually have a clue on how to act professional. Just…fired. RANT OFF.

CONDITIONING SESSION: After yesterday we decided it was time to get Cearra (along with Argent and Ronan) back into shape both mentally and physically. We worked from home today so we “snuck out” and headed to a local arena to work with the three (3) horses. Lots of groundwork, with trotting, direction changes, loping, more direction changes, flexion, yields….basically the works. If you have bee reading this Journal you are pretty aware of our groundwork program. Sweat happened. Focus happened. Then we rode!

Laurie and I both rode Cearra. Took her through all three basic gates, worked on transitions, bends, lateral/vertical flexion, backing, yields…again, the works. We got a little sass and a little attitude but that quickly went away. Then she tried the “I is stooped” trick where is attempts to play dumb. We worked through that. Then we got some really good teaching and conditioning moments. Her mind…blown. Her body…sweaty. Her final attitude…AWESOME! Like we wrote earlier, this part of the year is all about review and refine. Seems like a good plan.

We had some posts up to market her but after this last round of “people” we have decided to pull her off the market until late February/ early March. If training goes as we think it is going to go her asking price is going up too.

Onward and forward!