Starting Over

Saturday afternoon DH, Chase and I hauled out to the arena to ride. I told Chase that I was going to work with Abby first and after I was done he could get on her for a little bit.

DH saddled up Max while I went into the arena to do GW with Abby. I forgot to get my starting point video but I’ll put where I think she’s at for comparison sake.

Desensitizing to the rope went fine. She’s pretty much like LLL with this one.

Desensitizing to the stick and string – She’s ok with this as long as it is the over the back, wrap around the legs desensitization.

Yielding HQ – She actually does very well with this & keeps her front foot planted. I was having fun “drilling” her foot into the ground.

Yielding FQ – not so good. She prefers to try to bend her head around to her belly vs. moving but we got one or two good steps.

Slapping the stick/string on the ground - That’s when things got a bit ugly! We really need to work on this. There was no standing still and that was with the stick and string as far away from her as I could get it. Once I got her to stand quiet I quit because my shoulder hurt and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it up.

LFR Stage 1 – she’s not bad with this. Counter clockwise is her “up yours” side. She’ll go but when I ask for a lope I get the hoof (human version of the finger). I’ve also noticed that on this side she never picks up the correct lead when I initially ask her to go.

Once I was able to get her to go this direction without problems I desensitized her to the rope again and then saddled her up. I flexed her from the ground and then mounted and flexed her from the saddle. We then did yielding the HQ under saddle. It didn’t take much of me lifting my crop for her to move. LOL

Once I felt that was ok we moved to the ORS. I had DH time me so I knew I did them for at least 5 minutes (I know, not very long but it sure does seem like it). At the trot she kept wanting to break into a lope so it was good for her and she’s smart so she picked up quickly.

When it was time to go into a lope I let her lope about 2 strides before shutting her down. The first time I tried she ripped the reins out of my hands (this is what got me into trouble last weekend) so I jerked to get her attention and then did the ORS. We did this for a while and then instead of quitting her on the lope we did a little bit of the passenger lesson at the trot and lope and then yielded her HQ and backed her up a bit (she doesn’t know how to back at all).

After that I switched saddles and let Chase get on. When he tried to flex she wouldn’t stand still (I think his legs were on her) and he was releasing her at the wrong time. For some reason he’s decided to hold his reins upside down (palms up) so I made him get off, sit on a barrel and practice the right way and then let him get back on Abby.
Once he got it right a few times I let him walk the barrel pattern. Right now until he learns how to ride better I told him he can no longer go out of a walk (he’s not too happy with that). His riding skills have been decreasing instead of improving.

The one thing I’ll say about Abby is that she didn’t kick up her heels or shake her head this weekend when asked to lope (a huge improvement for her). I’m going to try to keep working with her if the weather will cooperate.

By this time it was 2:00, DH was complaining that he was hungry and my shoulder was killing me so I didn’t get a chance to work Lucy. I’m beginning to wonder why I even own a horse.

When we got home I played with her in the RP for a few minutes and then laid her down (no halter just the leg rope) for my niece and gave Lu treats while she was down. I think she enjoyed it. She has some nasty skin on her tummy that I picked at while she was down. By the time I let her up my hands were black! Yuck.

It was late so we chored and headed to the sale barn where we managed to pick up a few needed items.

Sunday the boys and I went over to grandma’s to help her with Sis. She pulled her mane and boy does she look different (I’m not sure if I like it or not). Her lope is getting so slow! MIL doesn’t like it. I told her she needed to decide if she wanted a WP horse or not then because that’s how it needs to be. I think once Sis builds up a few more muscles it will feel better.

We have rain in our forecast all week so I doubt much happens.