Thursday, April 22, 2010
Ride #2
Yesterday was ride #2, and it went really well! He was totally by himself today, so it was nice to see that he still trusted me and had enough confidence to move without a helper horse. We started out walking a little both directions, then I asked for the trot to the right. I let him trot out about half a circle and then used my seat to ask him to walk, which he responded to nicely. When we went to the left, he trotted off, started to speed up and got a little bothered and broke into a canter. We did about 3 frenzied canter circles before I was able to get him back to the trot with a soft seat and lots of "easy, easy". I let him stop and think on that for a bit and then we went back to the right. Here I asked for the canter on purpose (my ground driving paid off, he knew exactly what I wanted) and did a couple real nice easy turns around the round pen. Back to the left we went for "on purpose" canter and that went nicely too. So nothing more than a little scoot and panic and Cabrito quickly figured out there wasn't anything too scary about me being up there. I can tell he is going to be very sensitive and responsive, so I'm definitely looking forward to teaching him the cow work - I think he'll be good at it! It's too rainy and wet to work in the round pen today, so hopefully I can bring him into the indoor arena later and refine our ground work a little bit more. Since everything you do on the ground directly relates to how the horse is under saddle, I want to give him the best shot at being a good riding horse by properly preparing him in his ground work.
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Andraya,
ReplyDeleteI have been a horse lover all my life and a serious student of the horse for the last ten years. My favorite trainers Mark Rashid, Ray Hunt, and Tom Dorrance. I have been following most of the trainers blogs and have noticed that a lot of them have had some setbacks in their training, except you. I think you have followed the methods of the trainers I mentioned above the closet and it really shows. "Slow and steady wins the race." And you have proven it. Good luck in Ft. Collins. If you don't win I will be surprised but I hope you do. You have shown remarkable patience for a first time participant in this competition. I will continue to follow you. Jane Norris
Wow, thank you! That is quite a compliment! I certainly try to pattern my horsemanship after "the greats" but being young, I still make mistakes! Cabrito has been a fabulous learning experience for me and has really added to my toolbox for working with other horses in the future. I hope you will have the opportunity to come watch the competition!
ReplyDeleteThanks again for your kind words,
Andraya