August 6 2010
This morning a friend trailered Prince and Knightly out to her place for a playday. We had quite a big turn out. Something like 10 humans and their horses.
We got there early so Prince and I went into the arena and did some Falling leaf, Circles (w/t/c), jumping the big log, straddling, sideways, we played with the new bridge which was really cool! I asked Prince to walk across it and then back across it the whole way (coming on and off). He did really well and I was really pleased at how well he did with the circles. The arena is really big so I wasn't sure how Prince would do considering he is used to having a fence on the one side of his circle. We have playing in that arena a lot over the past year so it wasn't strange or anything. Prince wasn't totally connected at first but we kept it nice and slow at the trot and pretty soon he was trotting with rhythm, relaxation and connection. It was really cool!
Here are some pictures of the circles...
Since we still had time before everyone got there I climbed on bareback we did some Follow the rail, Transitions, sideways, we walked over the bridge and did some other small things. Then people started arriving so I hopped off and let Prince graze for a while.
Here are some pictures of me riding Prince...
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| Follow the Rail |
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| The Bridge. |
Then we started! The first puzzle was we had to do one complete Weave and then sit in a chair and sent our horse over the barrels. Prince did beautiful on the Weave but I messed him up on the jump but he did well and jumped it after a couple tries...
Here are some pics of Prince and I doing that puzzle...
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| Weaving. |
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| I love the look on Prince's face in these two pictures! |
After that it was Traveling circles. We had to circle from one marker to the other and stop at each tire a long the way and circle around it once. Every time you resent your horse you lost points. Prince was amazing and trotted the whole thing with out any corrections.
The last Online Puzzle we did was where we had to back our horse through an L shaped lane and then send them sideways over the barrels. Prince did very well with that too.
After lunch we did the Freestyle Puzzles. There was quite a few. We had to jump a log, stand in a box made of four barrels and put a rain coat on, stand in the center of the tarp stand or kneel on our horse for 7 seconds, take two glasses of water (one at a time) from one water bucket to the next, walk over the bridge, back through the L shaped lane and then go sideways over the barrels, walk between the two standing up tires and then turn face and wait, and take two carrot sticks (one at a time) from one bucket to the other (they were about 45ft apart or so).
It was a lot of fun and Prince got really interesting. It is was windy so that added the extra challenge. It was fun though. At one point when I went to put the rain coat on I had picked it up with my carrot stick and then a big gust of wind came and blew it, I was able to keep it on the end of the carrot stick but it was just out of my reach. Poor Prince, I am not sure what he must have thought but he stood there nice and still not problem. What a horse!
Prince and I went out and we finished with him grazing for an hour or so. I layed down in the grass and looked up at the clear blue sky. I thanked God for the wonderful horses he gave me and for my life. I love it!
Here are some extra pics...
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| Group shot #1 |
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| Group shot #2 Not everyone was there yet either! Two more people joined later! |
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| Sideways! |
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| Just a random picture my sister took ;) I like it though! |
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| You can tell that I was just about to ask him to straddle it. |
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| Isn't he just so handsome!?! |
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| Now these are some relaxed horses! I loaded them by myself too! |
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| It was a beautiful day weather wise!! |
Naturally,
~Keri
~Keri
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