Sunday, August 29, 2010

Knightly: The importance of having a good foundation...

August 27 2010

This morning I started off playing with and riding Knightly. It was so much fun! The main thing I learned was that having a good, solid foundation is so important! My mom has done an amazing job putting an amazing foundation on Knightly and that allowed me to come in and do a lot of advanced things because Knightly knows the basics, even though he may choose not to respond ;)

I put my saddle up him and then we went up to the riding ring. We played with quite a bit but the major things were getting the sent snappy and happy, zone 5 driving with one line, leading by the tail, change of directions, rhythm, relaxation and connection on the circle (I knew that he could do it and he did well at the trot so we played with it at the faster trot and canter), jumping a single barrel, sideways, getting more lightness, speed and distance on the back up, Touch it, and Figure eights. Knightly did really well and we both had fun. 

Then we rode. While we rode we basically played with walk-trot transitions a long the rail, extreme friendly game, 9 step back up, Figure eights, Touch it (we got all four feet on the pedestal!) direct and in direct rein. At first after we did some trotting Knightly`s adrenaline came up a bit so we did like what I did with Prince, every time Knightly sped up in the walk we would turn in a circle then keep going. That really helped and he relaxed and then we did more walk to trot transitions and Knightly was much more mentally and emotionally connected.

All in all it was a great playtime, yes everything didn`t go perfectly but we were able to advance some things and I was also able to play with some things that Mom was having some trouble with :)

Naturally,
~Keri

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