Ruffian: Figure eights and circles.

May 4 2010

This morning I played with Ruffian. We had a lot of fun despite the bugs. We actually didn't do a whole lot but what we did do Ruffy did extremely well at. The major things were circles and figure eights. While doing circles Ruffian was way more connected to me then last time and was a lot more relaxed. Going to the left I only had to make one correction and to the right it was 2. When Ruffian was on his 26th circle going to the right he had a major spook at something or other but I was proud at how well he recollected himself and we were able to finish really well. 

We did Figure eights after that and once again Ruffy did very well. I think he actually likes then now! He was amazing! We didn't over do it though and finished on a really good note. By this time there were three kinds of bugs swarming around Ruffian. Black flies, mosquitoes and the normal house flies. Poor guy. It wasn't as bad for be because I had the bug net on so that was nice. I decided to go down to the corral and take Ruffian into the shelter and let him get some relief from the bugs. Ruffy trotted right into the shelter and relaxed. We stayed in there for a while and then I let him go.

Before I played with Prince mom asked me to try my Wintec Wide on Knightly. Ruffian came over and parked himself right in front of me while I was waiting for mom to catch Knightly. So I decided to swing my saddle up on Ruffy. He stood there calmly no problem. So I took it off and put it back on a couple times, he was fine. So then I put my saddle pad on and then the saddle, he was fine. Then I put the girth on the one side and let it touch is stomach, he was fine. So then I went to the other side and buckled the girth up loosely. Ruffian was still fine! I couldn't get over it! Here was Ruffian, a horse that doesn't like saddles (just hasn't had enough experiance with them), standing totally at Liberty while I saddle him! What a horse! I made sure to end on a good note and so I took the saddle off and Ruffy just stayed there sleeping. It was really cool! Ruffian never ceases to amaze me :)

Naturally,

~Keri