March 22 2010
After lunch I played with Prince. He was lying down when I went out so I went and sat with him for a while. Then he got up and but still stayed with me so I haltered him and we went up to the riding ring. I wasn't planning on doing a whole lot with Prince but we ended up doing a lot. We started off with Figure eights. A couple days ago I was think and I realised that a lot of the things Prince and I are having a harder time with (or aren't as advanced as other things) is all because of our draw... Hmmm... How interesting. Our draw isn't broken and we still have a good draw but it is one of our weaker points. More so when we get to faster gaits. So over the last couple play sessions I have been playing with different things to improve our draw. So today when we were doing figure eights I noticed a difference. Prince was responding to my body and the belly of the rope was on the ground for 90% of the time. It was really cool!
After that we did some circles. Prince was, yet again, amazing! I had a little bit of trouble finding a place to stand in the riding ring where Prince would be able to canter and have enough room too. So I wasn't able to count how many laps he cantered but I think it was around 5. After that we did some transitions. Prince did really well. He was able to canter and then slow down and walk with out breaking out into the trot all the time. So that is progress! Plus there was slack in the rope the whole time. Prince did so well! When I asked for some change of directions Prince did really well with those too. There were a couple I didn't set up right so they weren't as nice but the others were great!
After that we played around with jumping a single barrel that was standing on its end. Prince never cleared it perfectly but he tried really hard! He is starting to get the idea now because you can just see him trying! It was really cool! Then I got the other 22ft line and we did some zone 5 driving. I decided not to use the 45ft line tied into 2 lines because the end kept getting caught on everything last time so I wasn't able to concentrate on what I was asking of Prince. The 22ft lines worked much better. I felt that I was able to be softer and more fair with them. We did the Weave at the trot (it always amazes me how fast Prince learns things! He did the Weave perfectly and only broke gait once!), Touch it, yo-yo's, circles, change of directions (they were much better this time. Prince was very responsive, part of that was me though... I was softer). I decided not to over do it this time. A couple times we actually got to the end of the lines, which is really hard for us because Prince looses motivation or something. We are starting to be able to canter on the circle now also. Which is huge! Prince is was so much lighter and it is only day two!
After that I decided to do some stick to me. So we played around with that. Prince did really well at going forward with me but when I would start backing up he would back up but not match my energy. I have known that for a lot time but I never seemed to take the time to fix it and when I brought my carrot stick it in support it Prince didn't respond any faster. So today I decided to fix that. I knew it was a broken driving game. So I played around with a couple things and it came down to the fact that my phase four was not being effective. I do have a phase four but it wasn't firm enough. I decided to play with it while driving Prince backwards. Off we went... I had to get a lot harder than I would have liked to get but it was necessary. I found an effective phase 4! Prince put more effort into backing up and doing all sorts of things. It was interesting that's for sure. After that we ended. Prince had a HUGE lick and chew. He wouldn't stop! So it much have meant something big to him. So yeah... I had a lot of thinking to do about that.
There is a TobyMac song called "I'm for you" and one line in the song is "What ever I gotta be, I be for you" and I was thinking about that was I was sitting there with Prince. I have to be what Prince needs me to be, I have to be the leader he needs me to be. If I am anything less then I am not holding up my part of the partnership. It may mean getting firmer, it may mean getting softer, it may mean a million of other things but I need to be what my horses need me to be. It may not be comfortable, I may not like it, it may mean it will take more time... but it is what Prince (and Twosox and Ruffian) need from me. It also means that if there are things that I have been avoiding, I am not being fair to my horses. I have to be what ever my horse needs me to be on that particular day...
Naturally,
~Keri
No comments:
Post a Comment