Prince: Eventually I will learn right?

 November 2 2010

Once again I failed to prepare Prince enough for the task that I wished to accomplish. But I think that this time maybe, just maybe, I will have learned the lesson! 

Today, one of the things that I wanted to play with while we were riding was simple lead changes, one of the only things that Prince and I can't do that needs to be done for our Level 3 Freestyle Audition. Well, I don't know if we can't do it but we haven't tried because we have been working on the ingredients for them. 

Prince and I played on the 22ft line in the arena but since the ground was hard, it was frozen so it was hard for Prince to canter on the circle a lot. We were able to get some nicer circles. Prince some how cut his upper lip a little bit so we had to wait until it stopped bleeding before we continued.

So where I realized I made the mistake was I went right into the Bowtie pattern after we did some sideways, indirect rein and pivots etc and what I should have done was done some cantering a long the rail, making sure Prince could do that. But alas hindsight is 20-20 right? :) 

What happened was Prince got confused and then it started loosing interest in what I was asking him to do. He wasn't in a learning frame of mind when we started so he gave up trying. Totally understandable! I would have done the same :) 

I realized what happened and so we went to Follow the rail and did lots of transitions. Once Prince was able to canter in both directions and on the correct leads then we ended. We then went out and rode the Question box Prince did really well with that. So I definitely know what I am going to do next time to better prepare Prince! 

Naturally,

~Keri