A whole new Prince!

Sunday September 20 2009

My mom and I went out and played with the horses. It was BEAUTIFUL outside. I saddled Prince [with a new shimming pattern]. Some things that I wanted to play with were

- Snappy departures in everything

- Sideways with my feet still

- Getting our porcupine games better. Lightness, Speed and Distance

- 5 circles at the canter. One thing that we saw at the clinic was you pick how many circles you want to your horse to do and what gait. Then you sent him off at what the gait and direction you have chosen then you count how many times you need to correct your horse [because he broke gait or stopped] then you work at it everyday and each day you should have to correct your horse less and less. Interesting!!

- Using my body/energy FIRST and then follow through.

Then for riding I wanted to play with

- Follow the rail. stopped at every corner and have STRONG focus. One thing that Mr. Pyne said at the clinic was to have really really strong focus.

- Refined indirect and direct rein. We got our September savvy DVD and it was all about rein positions and such. It was REALLY REALLY good. I showed me what I needed to do to truly refine our indirect rein and direct plus things like supporting reins etc.

Here are the things that I had to be thinking about while I played and rode...

- Getting my horse Happy and Snappy

- How effective is my phase 1

- Play strong to ride soft

- Have a STRONG plan

- Lightness, Speed and Distance

- Is this what I wanted my horse to do? Is this what I asked for?

- Using my body and energy first then my tools

- Is my horse aware of my energy?

- What do I want to get out of this session?

- After you wiggle your carrot stick once, you are obligated to tag your horse [this is more for Level 2+]

- Cause and Allow, don't Make and Let.

One thing that Mr. Pyne stressed at the clinic was that you have to be really particular. 

So with all that in my mind we set off. While we were still in the corral we did some porcupine sideways, Prince was leaking forwards so we had to play with that. Then Prince gave me a beautiful sideways for about 5ft at a phase one!! It was so nice!!!

On our way up the hill to the riding ring I drove Prince from zone 5. He was great!! Then we did some zone 5 driving with one rein. We did Weaving, Touch it and sideways. Prince was AMAZING!!! Then we started playing with sideways while I was keeping my feet still. Once Prince figured it out he was great!!! He would respond to just my energy!!!

 

Then we started to play with snappy departures. Prince caught on really quickly. On the third time I kind of though that I should just send Prince and not support it because Prince seemed to get it but I didn't [don't ask me why] and so I sent Prince and supported it. Prince went off at a canter [like he had been doing] but when I went to disengage his hind quarters he kept running. So I just slowly took more rope in till he turned and faced me. The interesting thing was that Prince wasn't quite RBE but he was definitely not his LBI. He was worried!!! It was my doing because I didn't need to put that pressure on him when I did. I guess Prince is a lot closer to the center of the circle than I thought he was!!! Now that I think about it he is really balanced I just never noticed it before.

So then since we had our snappy departures I asked Prince to canter the 5 laps. Prince cantered 5 laps with only 3 corrections. I was impressed! I thought it would be a lot more than that. One time Prince broke gait but picked the canter right back up again. When I went to bring him in he disengaged right away and looked at me with the most amazing look on his face!!!!!

After a bit of a rest I sent him over to the pedestal and Prince climbed right now. Then my mom asked Knightly too climb up beside Prince. I was about 20ft away from Prince and I had to move him over a bit so I just picked up my energy and pointed just a little with my finger and Prince moved over. It was so cool!!! As soon as I brought my energy up Prince at his attention on me and was like "okay what do you want me to do?!?!?" It was cool!! Once he moved over I relaxed but Prince was stilling looking at me with both ears and eyes. He was so in tune with me it was amazing!!!

At one point Prince and I were walking somewhere and I sent Prince over to a barrel that was lying there and Prince jumped it!!!! All I had to do was point and Prince did it!!! That was a HUGE improvement from before when Prince would walk around it, half jump it but half not and knock it around etc. It was so cool!!!

We also played with ground tying. Prince did really well. He figured it out really quickly. Prince was a little spooky too. If I dropped my carrot stick and had energy in my body he would start doing something. So I had to play some friendly with him. I remembered that the Parelli's said that when you get your horse more in tune with you they will get a little bit more spooky because they are actually paying attention!!

Ruffy and Twosox came up and were eating some trees and such around the riding ring then they took off into the bush. That didn't help Prince any. Since he wanted to move his feet I gave him a job to do. We did figure eights at a trot and canter. It is amazing how when you fix one thing [in this case it was Prince being snappy] that everything else gets better!! Our figure eights were incredible!!!!

After Prince was calmer I asked him to do some lateral flexions and indirect rein from the ground. He was still worried about Ruffy anf Twosox and where they were so it took a while but finally Prince relaxed and looked ready to ride. The whole time I was thinking "Does Prince look rideable?" "Is he paying attention to me or where the other horses are?" When he looked rideable I got on.

We just stood still for a while. Prince relaxed. Then we played around with some supporting rein, direct and indirect rein on more of a finesse rein. Prince was SO sensitive!!!! We did 1/2 of a circle with Prince pivot perfectly on his HQ's!!!!! Then we did sideways over to the my do give her my carrot stick. Prince went perfectly sideways and I was only using my body. We did a couple indirect rein and it was really good too.

Then we walked off. We did some Follow the rail. Prince was a little worried when we got to the one side of the riding ring but nothing to bad. We did 1 1/2 circuits of follow the rail, stopping at every corner. Prince got really good and would turn with out my reins. We did a little bit of trotting. One thing they did at the clinic was while you are following the rail you trot a little then bend your horse to the fence just a little so that they will come back down to a walk.

When ever I asked Prince into a trot he would put his ears back. Not pin them but I think it had a lot to do with the last time I rode and I got to direct line so Prince was now being defensive. We will get through it though. We played around with some more sideways, direct rein, getting Prince to pivot longer on his hind quarters. In the end Prince pivoted almost a whole circle!!! I was really proud of him!!! I had to get off once while I was riding. Knightly spooked at something and then Prince started to get worried again so I bent him and got off. Good thing I had practiced my emergency dismounts!!

Through out the whole play session and ride I was being very aware of my energy and making sure that I was doing that first before I used my tools. It made a huge difference in Prince. He started responding to the slightest suggestion. It was so cool!! The shimming pattern still wasn't quite right. Prince still had a lot of ruffled hair when I unsaddled. Hmmmmm..... we will get it!!

~K