Lots to think about.

This morning I played with Twosox. It was really nice outside so the horses weren't in the corral. Mom and I went out to find them. They were in the turn around. They all came to meet us. Prince trotted up!! What a sweet boy!!

Then they went home so we followed them. I caught Twosox and saddled him up then went up to the riding ring. We played with purity of gait on the circle and figure 8 pattern. I watched for when Twosox relaxed and settled into the gait. On the circle it didn't take long. He relaxed and his trot softened a lot. So then we went to the figure 8's. It took a little bit longer but we took it slow and just did it at the walk until he was arching his body around the tires and doing it really nicely. Then I asked him to trot through the middle then walk around the tire. Once Twosox got that we stopped.

Then we played at Liberty a little bit. We did some stick to me, Touch it, sideways, and circles. Twosox was great!!

Then I got on and rode. Started with some Follow the rail. I didn't hold my reins, I just used my carrot stick. Twosox did really well!!!! After that we went to figure 8's. Twosox wasn't in tune with me at all and wasn't paying attention so we went just to circling the tire. It took a while but finally Twosox was doing better so we went back to the figure 8. He did much better. It still needed some work but we were getting there. After that we did some point to point, really played with focus and trying to get Twosox listening to my body more and less to my carrot stick and reins.

After that was going better we played with that Question box. At first Twosox was wondering off and not interested at all but then he started catching on. It took a while but he started to get the pattern. But then we needed to work on him not leaning on my rein. He would be walking on the circle but he was pushing a lot and I kept having to put him back on the circle. So I my played with my body positioning and then when ever he started going off the circle I would pick up my rein and ask him to go back on the circle but I would also ask him to move his ribs over. This really seemed to work better. Twosox started to stay on the circle and I had to correct him less.

So then I asked him to trot. Twosox would trot about 3 steps then break gait. So since I didn't want to have to work on getting him to trot and keeping him on the circle we switched to following the rail.

I would ask Twosox to trot, we would trot a very short distance then he would break gait, I would let him walk a couple steps then ask for the trot again. Twosox started trotting longer and longer. It is getting so much easier to sit his trot. If I don't think about it then I am fine!! Plus having a good focus helps ;)

Then we went back to the question box. Twosox did really, really well. His circles were so much better.

After we were done that we wanted to work on Twosox backing up straight. I noticed that he wasn't backing up straight even thought he normally does. So we played with some yo-yo games. I would ask him to walk then after about 6 or 7 steps I would ask for a 9 step back up. At first he wasn't backing up straight but pretty soon he got it. We did it by a fence so that he would have something on the one side to help him. That seemed to help a lot. We also worked on backing up with no reins. Twosox caught on so quickly!!

After we were done I took the saddle off and we just hung out for a bit. I don't know why but I didn't feel the same as I normally did. I felt like I was being forced to go play with my horses even though I know there is no one forcing me to go play. I don't know why I felt like that but I don't like it. Maybe I will just do some undemanding time with the horses.

~K