Well, after a very long time of not doing much with my horses, I've started up a schedule again. My plan is to ride (in the round pen) Miss B and Holly once a week (on different days). Two of the five days I won't be riding, I will just tack up, round pen, and lunge. The other three days, I will just grain them indoors, and hang with them outside, bonding, and showing them that I'm not all work and no play.
This was decided today, after I found that not only is Holly still rideable (she has only been ridden about 10 times in her life, and the last time she was ridden was the end of August.), but she has actually improved since her last ride, not stayed the same, or gone backward as I'd imagined. Of course this could be due to my improved confidence from the Dressage lessons (which sadly are over now because of MASS amounts of snow), so I'm not afraid to ask for more out of Holly. More being changing direction across the round pen, asking her to stay on the outside, stopping, and backing up. You must realize that I have been terrified of riding this horse for forever, and so it is a big step for me to actually get on and do something. I have no more excuses because Holly's ground work is impeccable, and there are no more areas to improve in.
However, Miss B is showing her bad side. She is really making me work and step up my game in round penning, because I have to watch for all her challenges, and figure out how to respond. Just tonight, she refused to go clockwise while round penning. It took some creative thinking to get Miss B to do what I wanted while still being respectful to her, but I did it, and it paid off, as I got some huge bows and sighs from her.
I'm sorry if some of my lingo is confusing to any readers (if there even are any), but those of you using Chris Irwin's methods will know what I'm talking about. You can let me know if you don't understand anything in the comments, and in the future I will work at being more descriptive.
This was decided today, after I found that not only is Holly still rideable (she has only been ridden about 10 times in her life, and the last time she was ridden was the end of August.), but she has actually improved since her last ride, not stayed the same, or gone backward as I'd imagined. Of course this could be due to my improved confidence from the Dressage lessons (which sadly are over now because of MASS amounts of snow), so I'm not afraid to ask for more out of Holly. More being changing direction across the round pen, asking her to stay on the outside, stopping, and backing up. You must realize that I have been terrified of riding this horse for forever, and so it is a big step for me to actually get on and do something. I have no more excuses because Holly's ground work is impeccable, and there are no more areas to improve in.
However, Miss B is showing her bad side. She is really making me work and step up my game in round penning, because I have to watch for all her challenges, and figure out how to respond. Just tonight, she refused to go clockwise while round penning. It took some creative thinking to get Miss B to do what I wanted while still being respectful to her, but I did it, and it paid off, as I got some huge bows and sighs from her.
I'm sorry if some of my lingo is confusing to any readers (if there even are any), but those of you using Chris Irwin's methods will know what I'm talking about. You can let me know if you don't understand anything in the comments, and in the future I will work at being more descriptive.
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