Passenger Lesson!

Last night was beautiful! A bit windy but the temps were just lovely so we headed over to the arena. Cat is getting a bit more patient about standing at the trailer now (I think she knows what is coming).

After saddling her up I did a bit of LFR Stage 2 and then jumped on. Did my bending and then my ORS at the walk and trot. Trying to do a ORS at the canter wasn’t as easy because that meant I had to get her into a canter first. I wanted to quit her before she did me on that one so we moved on to the passenger lesson at the trot. Man is she lazy! We only trotted for 5 minutes (although my thighs would have sworn we’d gone for 5 hours) but she did fairly well. She broke a few times and didn’t give any extra effort but she did stay in it too.

Now it was time for the PL at the canter! Oh my was that a different story! Squeeze, cluck, whack Whack, WHack, WHAck, WHACk, WHACK, WHACK! It took a LOT of effort to get her to canter and I could see the protest in her ear placement and her tail swish. Once she got into the canter she didn’t stay in it very long and then we got to repeat. She took me towards the gate a few times. No big deal right? They all do that. Just keep it up and they’ll leave the area. Well I wasn’t so sure. About the third pass to the gate I would have put money on it she was going to try to jump so I went ahead and intervened and steered her a little bit. Next time I think I’ll have someone w/a stick down there just in case!

She did do really well though. We finished off by standing quietly in the center for a few minutes and then doing some follow the fence at a walk. We are expecting rain today and tomorrow so I probably won’t be able to do anything until later next week.