Prince: Online

February 14 2011

Prince and I were able to play Online today and focus on some things that we hadn't played with in a couple days because we had been playing at Liberty mainly for the last couple sessions.

First we started with bridling at Liberty though. Prince did so well and he took the bit in his mouth first try. He tossed his head a little bit but then he wasn't sure if he should toss his head or keep his mouth closed and try to get the honey off the bit. The look on his face was priceless!! We did that a couple times and then ended with me letting Prince lick the remaining honey off the bit with out it in his mouth. Bridling is progressing a long so well!! 

So we played with close range circles, changes of direction, backing up by the tail, sideways at a trot, traveling circles close range at a trot, and zone 5 driving with one rein with turns, transitions and jumping, 

Everything went well. Prince was light and responded well. While we were doing sideways at a trot Prince did really really well on the left side, his hard side, but on the right he had a little bit of trouble. Not much, just some little things I wanted to play with. Once we did that we did zone 5 driving. Prince wanted to come off of the rail a couple times so I took it, while still walking a long the rail and asked him to do a full turn and keep on going. 

The barrels were set up a long the rail so we jumped them and carried on. Once Prince started maintaining direction better and not coming off of the rail when I didn't ask for it we stopped and then I rode!

Our ride was good. I rode with the bareback pad on which was nice. We started with Follow the rail and played with trotting departures. Prince did well and towards the end we were getting them at a phase 1! They weren't perfect but they are getting better. Up next was circles. Prince had gotten less responsive to suggestions with my body so I wanted to do circles to help improve that. 

The hard part is that our riding ring is so small that there isn't hardly any room to do circles unless they are small, and Prince being a LBI it makes it harder. He tries really hard and will maintain the trot well and all but I can tell that it really isn't that interesting trotting such small circles. 

But we had something to play with today because he had to figure out the puzzle, how to keep my in neutral. It took a while for me to get a good clear circle in my head but once I got it things seemed to go pretty quickly. I had to make loads of corrections at first but we persisted with it and pretty soon we got a nice circle with only one or two small corrections so we ended there. 

Over all it was a great session. There are some things that we need to continue playing with but it was fun for both of us and I can tell that we are both making a lot of progress. 

Naturally,

~Keri