Spent the last 4 or 5 hours over at the barn with what seemed like everyone else in the world! Had to "take a number" for the round pen and the paddock, but it was great. Even while waiting, it was great to watch the others working their horses. That new guy, Pops, is absolutely amazing. His "Mom," Lori, said he had been trained in dressage and jumping but she had not yet tried him on any of that. But watching him work in the round pen, I can't wait to see it. He responds instantly to the quietest verbal command from her, and his movement is just gorgeous! He's a big Percheron/Quarter Horse cross and I didn't expect that he would look so fluid and graceful.
And it was so funny . . . the entire time Pops was working, Ladybug stood at the fence and never took her eyes off of him. She's never done that before! But she seemed very impressed with him! And when I got her in there herself a little later, I was amazed that she did just GREAT! Maybe all that observation did her some good!
As for Lizzie, well . . . let's just say Lizzie and I are going to have to go back to "start" and work up from there. It looks to me like Lizzie has never actually been worked in a round pen!!! Last fall when we bought her, they went out and got her in the pasture, saddled her up and she rode just fine. So that's what I did when we got her home. But after spending the entire winter doing absolutely nothing, she has apparently decided that she is now formally "retired" and doesn't have to listen to anyone about anything! It looks like it's going to take me some effort to convince her otherwise.
Today the major challenge was getting her to "whoa" in the round pen WITHOUT putting her head down and eating the grass in there. I didn't want to take the time to make a lot of tack changes today, but tomorrow I'm going to put her in a rope halter on a lunge line so I'll have a bit more control. I didn't want to work her too long this first day, but we did finally get to the point where she was making fairly prompt direction changes today, but let's just say it required a LOT more effort on my part than with Bug.
Wonderful morning, though. This is the perfect weather for this.
1 comment:
When I am in the round pen, I don't bother with a longe line. I figure they can't get too far and it's one less thing for me to worry about. Have you watched any of the Monty Roberts videos? I learned so much from them.
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