Monday, April 26, 2010

I succeeded in working two horses tonight!

I didn't actually ride him... just lunged. I let him out to charge and buck in the arena, then called him over and lunged him. Perfectly relaxed and controlled walk-trot-canter. He's so funny. He'd just been galloping around calling for Lola, but the moment I put him to work he's Mr. Manners. I love my boy.

So then I lunged him over some trot poles since we now have an arena that I can leave trot poles in! YEAH! (I haven't seen a western saddle yet.) Then I lunged him over a little bitty cross bar, maybe six 10 inches, maybe more like 8 actually. He was nice and relaxed and cantered over it right in stride. So we did it three times and called it a day! A good start. Then I had to get going with Lola, but at least he got out. I'm determined to get him going again so that I can launch into his training full swing the moment I find Lola a home or at least a rider to lease to. I'll be deciding on a price (tricky thing that is) and listing her this week. The longer I keep her the harder it will be to let her go, so its gotta happen soon.

Rain is coming in again tonight... so it will be a couple days before I can be out in the big arena again. I'm looking forward to having poles to work him through some low gymnastics. This summer we'll be focusing on dressage, with hopes of competing next fall. So as far as jumping goes, we'll just be doing poles and gymnastics to get him to learn to put his feet where they need to go and develop some muscle from picking up his feet. I am so excited to have a big arena to do it in, with lots of cavelettis, blocks, and short jump standards.

So far I LOVE the new barn!

1 comment:

T said...

Hey, even lunging is working, and over poles makes it almost a lesson! Yay! Working two horses a day is super tough, especially with all the other things us horse people seem to get ourselves into. Congrats and keep it up!