Prince: Bridling and Liberty!

February 7 2011

Prince came into the riding ring after I let Twosox out after our session. We played at Liberty for a while. We did Stick to me at the walk, trot, back up and canter. Then we went over to the barrels that were set up as a jump by the fence and my Mom asked me to try asking Prince to jump the barrels, turn face me, jump them again and repeat the process a couple times, and with speed! So we did that about 5-6 times, where Prince jumped the barrels, turned, jumped them again etc etc then we ended with me changing it up and asking Prince to straddle it, which he did perfectly!! It was a lot of fun and the look on Prince's face at the end was priceless! 

Then we came sideways towards me off the barrels and then took a short break before I asked Prince to go sideways over the barrels while I stood about 20ft away. At first he was trying everything when I just wanted him to line up in front of me and wait and then go sideways. So we played with that until Prince figured out that I didn't want him to do anything yet. 

Once Prince stood still I then asked him to go sideways and he was so light. I just lifted up my energy and focused straight over Prince to the other side of the barrels and Prince sent sideways perfectly right over the barrels. 

While Mom and Knightly played for a while before we started playing together at Liberty Prince and I went over and played with bridling. Prince knew exactly what it was and was reaching for the bit while I held it like I would bridle him. Through out the process I was able to guide the bit into Prince's mouth three times. The second time he tossed his head a little but when it stopped and lowered it I took the bit out. The third time though he took it really nicely and then continued licking the honey off then his mouth went perfectly quiet and he was fine with it!! So I guided it out and then I just put some more honey on it and let him lick it all off and didn't put it in his mouth. He was amazing!! Prince has made such huge progress in the last couple sessions it is incredible!! 

When Mom and Knightly were ready we played at Liberty together again. We decided to send the horses in the other direction around the riding ring this time and we also set up two jumps in different places so we could judge whether they were staying to the outside of the riding ring or not, and also to keep it interesting for them. 

The horse kept wanting to change direction at first but once we got that figured out the horses cantered about 3 really nice laps except Prince kept missing the jump. So we played with that until Prince jumped it and didn't go around it. Towards the end though Prince was getting tired so we decided to let the horses trot instead of canter, seeing as they had already cantered some really nice laps. At one point Prince was cantering around, jumping, and doing everything beautifully but Knightly kept turning and facing Mom after he jumped the barrels so once we solved that everything went really well. 

The horses were pretty tired after all that but it went well all in all. They had the most beautiful expressions on their faces when they came in too!! It was fun! We ended after that because they were getting sweaty and we didn't want them to get a chill or anything. Plus they had done really well. 

When we were cleaning the corral this afternoon Prince was following me around everywhere and when I was in one spot for a while he would just stand beside me and fall asleep then when I moved, he moved to right beside me again. We must have had a good session :) 

Naturally,

~Keri