Scary rabbits that hide in the woods....

So you may be wondering what is up with the title.... well let me explain.......

On Tuesday I played with and rode Twosox. We had an amazing play time on the ground, we played Online and at Liberty. We had a great ride too.... until the scary rabbits that were hiding in the woods decided to pop out and freak Twosox out, which made him jump sideways 10ft and in turn made me go 3ft the other direction. Yes ,I successfully had my second fall in my three years of owning horses. Not bad I would say. I didn't hit my head, thankfully but when I landed on the ground I landed on my arms so when ever I lift of push down on something it hurts, plus I am pretty sure I got whiplash so my neck is hurting but other then that I am totally fine. The best part of all is that I am not suffering from any lack of confidence. After I was able to breath again and after checking to make sure Twosox was okay I got back up on Twosox. Now I would NOT have gotten up again if I had felt even the tiniest bit of fear or lack of confidence but since I felt totally relaxed and confident I got back up. We just stood there for a couple minutes that I asked Twosox to walk forward a couple steps then I bend him to a stop and got off.

Now before all the above happened everything was going very well. Twosox and I did transitions, change of directions, stick to me, Touch it, and sideways while we were playing Online then I decided to try some Liberty. Since I knew that our draw wasn't the best we just did close range things. Twosox will stick with me but when he gets more then about 5ft away from me he get unconfident and isn't really sure what to do. So we did different kinds of friendly games then we did some porcupine games and a little bit of driving. Plus some Touch it. Twosox did really really well. I was really proud of him.

So then I got on. Now before I got on I realized that I was wearing running shoes so I got on but I didn't put me feet in the stirrups. Now the interesting thing is that when ever I have ridden in my Wintec Wide before it hasn't been as comfortable as I would have liked but since I didn't have my feet in the stirrups it was amazingly comfortable. Hmmmmmm How interesting!!!! So after a little bit of experimenting I found out that my stirrups were to short and so that was what was making me feel uncomfortable when ever I rode.

For the whole ride I tried to use as little of my reins as possible. Twosox did really well and responded so well. We did some figure 8's and follow the rail to start with. The figure 8 pattern is SO much better then last time we did it. Twosox responded a lot better to my carrot stick and wasn't as impulsive. We only rode in the round corral area. Twosox seemed to do much better in the smaller area.

Pretty much all of what we did was at the walk. I want to focus on getting Twosox really confident at the walk then we can focus on the trot. So we only did a little bit of trotting. It was interesting though because I have only ridden Twosox's trot bareback once so even though I was riding in a saddle this time I didn't have my feet in the stirrups. It wasn't to hard to sit but it was a little bouncy.

After that we played around with some carrot stick riding. I had my savvy string on my carrot stick so that was new for Twosox but he did really well. I did some extreme friendly game, that was new too. Twosox did so well. I was really proud of him.

Then that is when the rabbits decided to come out of hiding and spook Twosox. It was actually a good time to fall off.... if there is ever a good time to fall off a horse ;) because I didn't have my feet in the stirrups and I wasn't holding my reins so I couldn't get caught up or anything.

So after I had recovered, gotten back on and walked around for a bit then gotten off I decided to do a little bit of undemanding time with Twosox. He stayed with me for most of it then near the end he left, went over to the pedestal and climbed up on it. I didn't see him at first because he was behind me but then I looked over and there he was standing up on the pedestal looking at me and asking a questions. He was so cute!!! What a special boy!!!!

So all in all it was a really good play time. Twosox is coming a long so well!!!

~K