March 20 2010
Yes, I played with all three horses today! What an amazing day! I had a couple things in mind that I wanted to play with with Prince so I set some stuff up on the riding ring and then went and caught Prince. Once we were up in the riding ring I switched to the 22ft line and we were off! We did some smaller things then we did some circles. Prince was incredible! At first we did some Change of directions and transitions then I asked Prince to canter and we did some traveling circles. At one point I asked Prince to do a change of direction and he got the rope caught under his leg so I brought him in and then sent him back out again. The really cool thing was that Prince cantered 7 laps with me in complete neutral!!!!!!!! It was so amazing! As I have said before Prince would only maintain the canter if we were doing a traveling circle so this was huge! When I brought Prince in he came cantering in to me also! What a cool horse!!!!! Of course Prince got a long rest after that!
Then I put the 45ft line on Prince and I asked him to back in between the tires. At first he didn't go straight but after a couple tries he got straighter. So that is something we shall have to play with. Then I tied the 45ft line into two reins and we did some zone 5 driving. We did some Touch it, jumping, Weaving at a trot, sideways, yo-yo's, circles, transitions, cantering on the circle (!!!!), change of directions and lots more! Near the end I think Prince got a little bit confused as to what I was asking him but we sorted it out. It was really amazing all that Prince offered me! I still have to get better with my tools though. But it will take time... and practice! ;)
After that we played at Liberty! Prince left a couple times through out the whole session but considering we don't have a round corral I think it was pretty good. We did Stick to me, Touch it, sideways, jumping, doubling jumping (where Prince jumps one jump and then another on right after it), straddling (a first for us at Liberty! Hooray! Prince caught on in no time!), sideways towards me, close range circles at a walk, leading by the tail and lots of there things! One time when Prince left me I decided to use it and I turned it into a circle. It wasn't a perfect circle though but it was still a pretty good one plus it was at the canter! Prince cantered 4 laps! WOW! I am not totally sure if Prince knew he was circling but he stayed on the same track the whole time so who knows! Either way he came in when I asked him to and was really responsive! So maybe he did know!
After that I got on and rode. When I asked Prince to trot he bucked a little bit so I stayed on just to see if he would still listen to me but he did it again so I got off, played with him for a couple seconds and then got back on again. This time was much better. We did the Weave at a trot (bareback too!), sideways, Follow the rail, point to point, 9 step back up and a couple other things then I got off. We didn't ride long but since we did a lot of other things both Online and at Liberty I decided to keep it short.
So all in all it was a great play time even though there were some "Oh boy!" moments.
Hopefully this next week is just as good as this week was, horse play wise.
Naturally,
~Keri
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