The past two days have been rain rain rain. Uggh. Spring has finally came. Along with it came the rain. I'm not to thrilled if you haven't already figured that out. It was raining enough today that I didn't get to work with Jet :( But....
Monday we did some more lunging. Every horse needs to be able to work without a rider on it's back, but rather on the ground at one point or another in my opinion and while is it drizzling, is the perfect time (I don't want to get my Mom's saddle wet also). We did walking, trotting, cantering etc. I added in some ground poles to help him pace him self and stride himself nice and evenly. At first he jumped the first ground pole and trotted awkwardly over the second but eventually he got the concept that he is supposed to just trot them normally. We went both directions, but a little more to his bad way (going to the right). He had a blast! He would occasionally get sassy and stop at the gate, spin around, and gallop/buck away but then he would listen to me again. He didn't escape this time (:
While I was setting up a small crossrail to use for Biscuit, and letting him roam around, he decided to follow me. -Hmm... I think he had some Natural Horsemenship training or something- I thought. I took his halter off, and walked. He stayed at my shoulder. I changed directions. He stayed at my shoulder. I stopped. So did he. I backed up. He did aswell. I jogged. He trotted at my shoulder. We did this for about 5 minutes. Then I thought...-If I ran next to the jump... would he go over it?- So we tried it. I ran right next to the jump, he stayed at my shoulder and didn't hesitate one bit! I gave him a huge reward, lots of pats and hugs and kisses. We tried again, and I ran faster, and used my voice commands to ask him to canter. His transition was perfect, and off we went! He did it wonderfully! I was so proud of him! He strided himself up to the jump and picked a perfect takeoff spot! Now that weknow he can jump, we will leave that for the summer and work on trotting for now! lol
For the rest of March and April.... our goal is to get the w/t down to the point where he is balanced and moving correctly and smoothly. Can we do it? I think we can :)
-Emily and Jet
Belle sometimes does that if she is feeling a little nice :)
ReplyDeleteThough she never learned to lunge. I try. and try. and try. I tried to teach her mutiply times but she just HATES doing that. She has no problems under saddle and none whats so ever in hand but on the lunge line she turns a kicks, bucks and speeds up. We don't have a round pen or else I think it would be a bit easier.
Bigen is pro at lunge *tee hee* :D