Day 47&48 ~Hot n Sticky

Summer has sure arrived! We are hangin' in there...riding late and early. Lindsay is Loving her stall fan.

She now has quite a few new friends in her stall... Judy the spray bottle, Kim the water bottle, Nancy the water jug, along with quite a few of Nancy's kin folk..as well as Frank the feed bag, Sally and Sara the saddlebags and finally Andrea the shavings bag...non of which I do believe have really hit it off w/ Lindsay thus far, but she deals with their constant presence. I actually pulled everyone down today except Nancy the water jug..she was hanging in the middle of the stall. I stepped aboard Ms. Lindsay and just swatted Nancy around while sitting on her back, even untied Nancy and rubbed her up and down Lindsay's neck. That went very well, so I am thinking our new friends are making progress...I keep telling them to keep up the good work.

We've ridden in the little ring that has a rail quite a bit, really working on smooth steady, slow canter work on the straight aways. Lindsay has gotten pretty comfortable loping circles, but on the straights she still gets a little carried away at times...especially when we were at the horse show and there was sooo much to go check out. So lots of collected cantering on the rail...she seems to be catching on..I actually asked for a canter out in the big ring today and she did quite well on the straight aways, respecting my aids, especially outside, and maintaining a soft canter. She still has her moments of wobbly-ness, which usually transfers into her bouncing up w/ her front end like some Lipizzaner when I go to ask her to come back together!..She has got some lift, there is no doubt about that. She is most definitely sensitive, which I truly love in a horse, but I am having to be careful these days not to get her to sensitive and "Anticipate" to much..the more she learns what all she is capable of w/ me on her back, the more she wants to "ad-lib" every now and then and throw in her own moves..like "Hey, betcha' didn't know I could do this too" hehehe.. She is sure a fun ride. I am trying to be conscious to spend plenty of down time though, so I remind her mind it's ok to settle and just do nothing for a bit.

We had gone through a stage of her wanting to move a bit when I mounted, she never did that at first, but of course at first she didn't know she could move with me up there..now she does. I always just sit on a horse when I first mount to teach them to stand, but her sitting time has gotten much longer... we now sit 60 seconds before moving..and they have to be 60 seconds of total still, if we take a step at 55 seconds we start over...at first this did bug her, but I think she's catching on now..we'll see if she remembers the next time we haul off the farm to ride, that will be more of a test.

We have ridden in the Bosal as well as her snaffle, I like her in both, but I have spent so much time in the snaffle she just understands it better at this point. I think I'll still go back and forth for a while..the more she understands the better.

So all is well, just trying to stay cool, lope in a straight line and make friends with the bottle family right now :)