Dealing with confidence issues...... with me!

Like the title says I am dealing with some unconfidence issues while riding. I am not 100% sure when it all happened but I think it started with cantering. I wasn't ready and ended up bushing myself to far outside my comfort zone. So now I am dealing with confidence issues at the trot. Walk is fine, trot is fine for the most part... until Prince gets trotting faster. So it isn't a big issue but it isn't something I want to ignore either. I find that when I am riding with out my carrot stick it helps. The main issue is when Prince get trotting faster and then I feel that I can't stop him fast enough when I get a little worried. So riding with out a carrot stick right now really helps. Plus having a really strong focus and not letting my mind think 'What if Prince starts to canter" Which would be a really slight chance because our riding ring is so small. Today when I was riding I realized that as soon as I stopped focusing at what I was looking at [normally a fence post or something] that was when I got worried. So I have to keep my mind on riding the trot and on staying focused. That helped A LOT!!!! It was really good and it also helped that I realized that when Prince was getting faster his mind was still on me and what I was asking him to do. Because as soon as I relaxed and asked Prince to stop he would. I didn't even need to use my reins.

Anyways. That was a little bit different way of introducing my play session today ;) But believe it or not it really helped typing it out and thinking it all over. Tomorrow we are hoping to trailer the horses out to our friends farm again and play and ride there. So I have a plan on what I want to do when I am riding. Her arena is so much bigger then ours so that doesn't really help any but I think what I will do is pick Follow the rail and trot from post #1 to post #3 then walk a little then do the same thing over again. Plus do it with out a carrot stick. My riding has gotten a lot better over the past couple months but I still have a long way to go and right now I can ride perfectly fine with a carrot stick at the walk but when I get into the trot I don't go through my phases right and everthing goes down hill from there. So that will be one thing I do. I just need to take is slow and wait for me to really be confident then maybe I will try some other stuff.


So now that that is over with I will start at the beginning and tell you all about my play time and ride with Prince today!!!

I started by playing with Ruffian feet. He was by the gate and wouldn't leave so I thought why not. I ended up picking up all four of his feet and picking them out, all at liberty!! Ruffy was a gem!!! He got a little bit bored right near the end but all in all he was wonderful!!

Then I went to Prince. I wasn't sure how he was going to do but I took it all a step at a time and I think everything went well. I had to use a couple different strategies too. It was a real test of my savvy!! We started out a Liberty just because I was to lazy to go through the muck and get the halter. Prince did pretty well but then he started pulling his foot away when ever I started picking out his foot. So after a little while I decided to use my 12ft line and put it around Prince's foot and use that to help me hold it. That made a HUGE difference!!! I mean it was so much easier!! At first Prince still pulled and tired to get his foot away but I was able to just go with it and every time Prince stopped pulling I would take rub him and take his foot and just hold it. Then after I could hold his foot up with rope for 30 seconds and he wouldn't pull I started holding the foot and only using the rope if I needed too. Prince did so well that he didn't pull once while I was picking out his foot and I took my time and looked at it, moved it around, brushed it etc Prince just stood there quietly!! He even put his head lower and started licking and chewing!!

We then went to the right front foot. That one was harder. Prince did not want me to hold it but after a little while he figured out what I wanted and he let me pick out his foot and put it down nicely! I could tell that Prince was getting closer to letting me hold that foot because when I picked it up he was soft and then he started blowing, sighing, and licking and chewing. I gave him a long break and then we saddled up and went up to the riding ring. I am so proud of how well Prince and Ruffy did. I am confident that next time Prince will be that much better!!   

Once we were up in the riding ring Prince and I played on the 12ft line for a bit. It was a lot of fun seeing how much we could get done on a shorter line. We did walk/trot and canter on the circle, change of directions [drop to trot lead changes and change of direction at the trot], transitions [canter to halt to back up etc] We played with backing up on the circle, Prince backed up about 1/2 a circle!!! Then we went and got a Porcupine game lighter. Prince did really well. We got about 3/4 of a pivot both forequarters and hindquarters.

After that I got on and rode. We played with Follow the rail, Figure 8's at a trot, Sideways, Transitions, Point to point [Prince offered to put all four feet on the pedestal!!], Weaving, getting the 9 step back up lighter, backing up with no reins, Savvy string riding, Indirect and Direct rein. It was interesting because when we were doing the indirect rein I could actually feel when Prince did it right and when he wasn't quite doing it. It was really cool!! Our transitions are getting a lot better! We did some trot to halt transitions [Prince was really good at those ;)]

One thing I did find out that was Prince likes it better when I don't ride with a carrot stick. It was an interesting discovery!! So I ended up riding with it only at the walk or when I was totally freestyle and not holding my reins. I had to make sure to be really soft and give Prince the time to respond then he was okay with it but if I got to hard or went to a phase 4 with out doing a proper phase 1 Prince would put his ears back, his head would go up and he would get defensive. It was a "How interesting" moment!!

I had to get off at one point so Prince and I did some Figure eights. Prince was REALLY good!! I played around with what I learned at the Fawn Anderson clinic. It really made a difference! I had to play around with our Sideways too. Prince isn't really going sideways [his hindquarters are lagging] so we played around with that. It is amazing how when you are focusing in the right place everything goes better! :) hehe

After I had gotten off and unsaddled Prince I was going to let him go but my mom wasn't quite done with Knightly so I decided to get on Prince bareback. He brought himself right over to the fence for me to get on and was happy to let me on. Such a big change from last year!! I wasn't planning on going anywhere of doing anything but after a while of standing by the fence Prince started walking so I took it and we went over to the gate then I asked him to go over to the pedestal. We rode over to the pedestal, Prince climbed up and we stood there for a while. Then I slid of Prince's hindquarters, just for fun ;)

Prince did really well. I was a little frustrated because I knew that I could have been a lot better and I should have known to go through my phases right [well I knew it but for some reason it didn't come out my hands today]. Typing it has really helped. I was able to see that we did have a really good ride and even though I could have been a million times better at least I know where I can improve!! :)

Anyways.... Lord willing we will be going out to our friends tomorrow! I am excited!!!! I hope everything goes well. I will let you all know how it goes!! :)

~K