Knightly: Wow!

August 10 2010

My mom asked me to try my saddle on Knightly to see how it fit and all so I did and then I played with him! I had so much fun and I think that Knightly did too. Mom has come a long way with Knightly and so I was able to do some pretty neat stuff with him. We did Circles, Change of directions, Falling leaf, jumping (Knightly jumped a single barrel!!), Weave, Sideways and a lot of other fun stuff. When I asked Knightly to canter he trotted REALLY REALLY fast. I don't even want to think about how it would feel to ride that!! ;) 

Through the whole session I tightened up the saddle until it was as tight as I wanted it. Knightly didn't buck even once!!! I was so proud of him! We did a lot of stuff and a lot at high speeds and he was perfectly fine with it. So when I felt ready to get on I mounted up. I mounted from the pedestal so that I could still see how Knightly would handle me using the stirrups to get on but it wouldn't be as much weight as if I mounted from the ground. He was fine and stood nice and still for me. Then after I hurried up and did nothing then we headed off and did some Follow the rail.

Knightly was a little slow heading off. He would go but he wouldn't put a whole lot of effort so I just went up my phases and I didn't even have to get to a phase four, I just put a lot of energy and he figured out what to do ;) After that he went at a phase 2 most of the time. After we did a little bit of Follow the rail I asked Knightly to trot. This was the first time he has ever trotted with a saddle on since we got him (he was green broke w/t when we got him and mom has done a really great job putting a solid foundation on him at the walk) Knightly went into the trot nicely but he wouldn't trot long. That was okay though. I would just let him walk a couple steps and ask again. At first the departures were a little rough, Knightly would kind of jump into the trot but then he offered a really nice one and trotted quite a ways so we stopped and had a long rest. 

After that we played with sideways. Knightly caught on really fast and we got a couple small steps each direction and then we quit. I was really pleased with how well Knightly did and very impressed at how far he has come under my mom's care :) 

Naturally,

~Keri