Playing with Prince....

Wednesday Oct 7 2009

Today was FUN!!! My mom, two little brothers and I went out to get the horses. I caught Prince and played with him a little bit before we left. He was actually playful!!! It was so funny!!! We did some change of directions, some totally AMAZING transitions.... like one time Prince was cantering around and all I did was relax and he stopped right then and there!!! It was incredible!!!! One really neat thing was that Prince was cantering and there was slack in the rope!!!! Normally when Prince and I are playing in the field and Prince is cantering on the circle there isn't any slack in the rope at all. So that was really nice!!! We did a little bit of traveling circles too.

Then we started home. We played Stick to me on the way home and then every once and a while I would stop and ask Prince to pick up one of his feet. He did really well at that. The other horses didn't follow us home. Prince did really well though and wasn't bothered by that.

When we got up to the riding ring we did some Figure eights, Touch it, jumping a single barrel, sideways, leading by the tail, and then we played with our change of directions. I had a big BFO this morning and realized that I am not being consistent enough when I play and ride. So today I made sure that I was!! So at first our Change of directions were really rather messed up so I started playing with different things and finally I got it!!!! I was passing the rope into my other hand instead of keeping it in the opposite hand. Hmmm how interesting!! Once I made sure I was doing that right Prince did 4 change of directions BEAUTIFULLY!!!! I mean they were so smooth!!!

So then I told my mom what I found out and we did a little simulation to find out the difference. There was a huge difference!!! To think that something as simple as what hand the rope is in..... but it makes all the difference!!

After we were done that I got on Prince BB and rode. For the most part we just did Follow the rail. Prince is SOOOOO comfy bareback!!!! He is the most comfortable horse I have ever ridden bareback!! At first Prince wasn't really following the pattern so I would just politely put him back onto the rail. After a couple minutes he figured it out. For pretty much the whole ride Prince had the best look on his face!! He was really interested!!! Over all Prince did really well. I had a lot of fun because I knew what we were doing and was able to focus. So that was good. We did a little bit of trotting. Not to much because I am not the most fluid rider when it comes to bareback riding ;)

When we were done playing let Prince go. He stayed with me for a little while. Then he slowly walked down the hill to the corral, when he saw that the other horses were there he started neighing. Poor guy :( So my mom and I decided to take him back to the herd. I was part way down the hill and Prince saw me and he nickered!!! Then he came right over to me. What a sweet horse!!

So we start walking back out to the field. We did stick to me on the way there. Just some walk, trot, back up. It was really fun!! Prince didn't even seem to be worried about the horses now. He was so in tune with me!! Once we got closer to the field Prince looked like he wanted to go ahead so I let him. He trotted to the field and when my mom and I got there he was happily reunited with his herd ;)

We then just spent some time hanging out with the horses, Prince and Ruffy started playing. It was really interesting to watch them play! I love it!!! Ruffy has so much play drive!!! At one point Prince told Ruffy off then comes walking over to me and looks at me like "Did you see that!?!" It was funny!!!

Anyways! It was a really good play time and ride!!

~K