Prince: Stick to me, Circles and more!

March 30 2010

This morning I played with Prince. It was so nice outside! Yesterday it snowed so I didn't get a chance to play other than a little bit with Twosox at Liberty in the corral. So it was great to be back outside! Prince and Ruffian were up in the riding ring when I went out so I went up there to see them. They both looked pretty happy to see me. I spent some time just rubbing them before I haltered Prince. Before I actually haltered him we did a little bit of Touch it and Stick to me at Liberty. It was fun! 

After I haltered Prince we did some Touch it and sideways and then we did some Stick to me, walk, trot and canter. I am starting to ask Prince to cantering in straight lines instead of us doing it in circles. That is going really well and today we made huge progress! At first Prince wasn't as in tune with me so we had to play with that but by the end he was really in tune with me! It was cool! We cantered in a straight line all the way to the other side of the riding ring! 

Then I decided to play with our circles. Prince did really well and did so well but since our riding ring is small all of our obstacles are every where so there isn't really any clear space. Which is fine for the most part but today they were in the way. Prince was cantering a long and wasn't able to do a good circle because he had to watch out for where he was going and so he ended up getting worried. So I had to stop and move all the obstacles from the one end of the riding ring so that we could play with our maintaining gait at the canter with out Prince tripping over everything. Prince did much better and looked way more relaxed. Plus he had slack in the line. So after that we did some transitions and change of directions which Prince did really well with. We got some really nice walk to canter transitions! 

Then I asked Prince to jump the barrels while he was coming into me (like we did last day) He got it on the first try! Hooray! He learns to quickly! This time we were able to go the whole pattern and I was backed him back to the barrel after he jumped it. So that was really cool! We also did a little bit of one line zone 5 driving. And every once and a while I would ask Prince to do a spin and keep going in the same direction but the rope would be on the other side. He did those really well (that was another thing that we did on Saturday!) 

Prince stayed with me after I let him go and so we walked down the hill and into the corral together. So all in all it was a great play time and I will know for next time what to do before we do our circles!:)

Naturally,

~Keri