Snow... bridless riding,,, winter... and more!

I played with Prince yesterday. It was our first play time in the snow this winter!! It snowed over a 12 inches since Monday!! It was crazy!!!

Prince and I had a lot of fun though. I got a wooded shed out of the shed so that Prince and I could play around with pulling it. At first the horses were like "WHAT IS THAT???" But once Prince sniffed it out he was totally fine with it. I wasn't going to halter Prince right away but he brought his head around and wouldn't take it away!! So I haltered him and then went up to the riding ring. I dragged the sled all the way up the hill and it was behind Prince the whole way!!! Prince couldn't have cared less!!!!! When we were up in the riding ring I let the sled drag farther behind Prince, I asked Prince to trot and some other stuff then I looped the rope around his neck and held the end. That way he was pulling it. Prince was perfect!! He responded really well and it was a lot easier then me trying to pull it ;) Prince is so much stronger :). We played around with that for a bit. Prince was fine the whole time.

After that I put the 22ft line on Prince and we did some circles. Prince did really well keeping the slack in the rope at the walk and trot. After a couple circles I asked Prince to canter. We definitely have to play with that. Prince would canter about 4 strides and then break gait. So we played with it until he cantered about 1/2 a circle then I brought him in and gave him a rest. Then sent him back out again. This time I could see that he was trying harder and knew what I wanted. He would canter about 3/4 of a circle, break gait, then either pick the canter back up again or I would just point and he would start cantering again. After a couple times of doing this he cantered 1 and a 1/2 laps then I brought him in. Since I haven't asked Prince to canter on the circle in a while I didn't force him... besides it would be REALLY hard to force Prince to canter 4 laps ;) So I am going to take it slow and build back up to where we were a couple months ago.

Since we were ready to ride I decided to play around with mounting by the neck. Prince has the basic concept but he still walks away a little when I jump on his neck. But after a couple tries he did it really well. He walked away a little bit but not as much as before plus he put effort into lifting his neck and helping me on. So I decided to leave that there. We then just spent some time doing nothing. Prince stood really well. Ruffy was a little distracting because he was trying to convince Twosox that to play with him but Prince did well. After a bit we went and did some different things. Just playing with getting everything lighter and such. Prince tried so hard at what ever I asked him!! Our sideways and 9 step back ups are getting really soft. Prince is had figured out that when I put a little bit more pressure on it means to go faster. That was cool!

We didn't do a wholel lot of trotting but we did some. At one point Prince started trotting faster so I just grabbed a hold of his mane and did what Mr. Parelli calls "Hang tight and raddle!!" It was fun! The good thing was that I didn't raddle to much ;) We also played with indirect rein. We are starting refine it in the way of I will ask Prince to pivot either a complete circle or a circle and a half. Prince caught on really quickly. It was amazing!! Plus we are taking up the speed too.

Then I tied my savvy string around his neck and played around with that. That was another one of those things that we were kind of avoiding just because I didn't want to take the time to teach Prince not to run through the pressure. But I think that this winter will be a winter of doing the things that I was avoiding for no reason what so ever. So far I have done two of the things so I guess that is a good start ;) As soon as Prince felt the pressure of the savvy string he started walking right through the pressure. So I just pretended that I was a fence post and then when he stopped I released instantly. It took a while but finally he figured out to yield to the pressure. Then it was time to try it at the walk..... we walked a long the rail and did walk to halt transitions with some back up in there too. Pretty soon Prince got the hang of it. After that was going smoothly we went to turning. It is amazing how riding with a savvy string really makes sure you get all our phases right!! At first Prince would just back up when he felt the pressure when I was asking him to turn but he soon figured it out and was turning and I didn't even need to use the savvy string!! It is an amazing feeling when you horse responds to you and you don't have to use your rein, carrot stick, or anything else but your body. After that Prince got even lighter and he was responding consistently with our me having to use my string. That was going really well so I grabbed my carrot stick and we rode around with that for a bit. Prince is getting ultra light!! We ended when Prince gave me 1/2 a pivot on his hindquarters with just tiny little bit of pressure with my savvy string. It was amazing!!!

Definitely a good first snow ride!!! Now I just have to uncover all our toys.....

~K