Break through... in a way

Yesterday was such a nice fall day. I couldn't have asked for a nicer day weather wise. It was beautiful out!!

I played with and rode Prince. We had a blast!! I make another change to the shimming pattern for my saddle. I think this one should do the trick.... I hope ;) Prince did really well while I saddled him. Isn't it wonderful when you can use even the smallest thing to help with saddling etc. When I was saddling Prince yesterday he was standing beside the fence and I needed to get to the other side but there wasn't any room for me between him and the fence, so I simply asked Prince to come sideways towards me and make room for me. He did it perfectly!! It is wonderful!!

We played a little bit in the corral. I like to be on the second stage before I go up the hill so that the saddle stays where is should and doesn't slide around. So we did some sideways and circles on the 12ft line. Even though I hadn't played with Prince a lot before I saddled him he did so well. He trotted 4 laps on the circle with out me correcting him once!!

Then we went up to the riding ring and played with our change of directions, transitions, sideways, and leading by the tail. It was so much fun!! We did some canter to walk then to canter again. At first Prince wasn't paying much attention to me but after a couple transitions and change of directions he got REALLY in tune with me. He started putting slack in the rope, he didn't break out of the canter, and our transitions got a million times better!!

After that I set a barrel up about 6ft from the fence then and put two poles on it and the other ends on the fence. It was about 3 1/2 ft tall. I sent Prince on the circle and "put" the jump in his way. I wasn't really sure what he would do because he has never jumped that high before, he has jumped the barrels on end but it was higher than that so I wasn't sure what he was going to do, and if he jumped it if he would make it over. He did. He just about 1ft higher then the jump too!!!! He just flew over it!!! When I disengaged him he turned and faced me with the look on his face like "I did it!!!"

Prince and I have only been practicing our ground tying for the last week or so but Prince has already figured it out. It is SO cool. He will just stand there and wait for me while I do what ever I need to do. I have such a cool horse!! We also played around with spinning. At first Prince wasn't sure what I wanted but after a couple tries we finally got something that resembled a spin ;) The last couple ones we did were actually really good!!

I switched the reins on my black hackamore to my blue one. The black one is SO small. Even though they are both the same size. The black one I had to tie really rather tight just so that I could tie it. So I am now going to be using the blue one. It is SO much better. It fits really well too. I think Prince was a lot happier with it too.

When I mounted up Prince wouldn't stop licking and chewing!! I am not sure if it was because of the shimming pattern or the hackamore but either way it was so cool!! We started with some Follow the rail, Million transitions, Weaving, and Sideways. Prince was SO responsive!!! I hardly even needed my reins!!

When we were doing the Million transition pattern Prince was totally amazing!!! We did it at the walk/trot. It was incredible!!! After we did that we played with refining our indirect and direct rein even more. Prince is doing so well!!!!! At one point we were facing one way and all I had to do was collect my reins and focus where I wanted to go [which was the other side of the corral] and Prince pivoted PERFECTLY 1/2 a circle to where I was looking!!!!!!!!!!! It was such a cool feeling!!!!!

Through out the whole ride Prince wouldn't stop licking and chewing!!! It was really cool!! Plus the had his head REALLY low. Even when I took the saddle off he kept it low. It was interesting!

Prince's back is looking so much better now. It is so nice!!

~K