Out of the Round Pen!

Giving him a pat and release for giving me a bit
 of vertical flexion at the walk

On my off day Friday I was obligated to fulfill my wifely duties and clean the house, yada yada. But I had a TEENSY bit of time right before it was time to go pick up my oldest from school to go out and see my pony face. And as you can see from the picture above I got to ride outside the round pen! I thought as I pulled up I really didn't have time to traipse back and forth to the round pen (I had like maybe 35 minutes) so I told myself I was just going to grab my tack and brush and meet him in the pasture. So I bridled him up, gave him a quick brush and threw the saddle on! He just stood there like a good boy of course. And my new saddle stand was a life saver! It kept my saddle off the ground AND I used it for a mounting block! ;)

Some vertical flexion

It was SO MUCH FUN to ride outside of the round pen! We had so much to explore and so much more room to move. I loved having things to maneuver around to practice getting his steering better. I did like the round pen for getting used to him again, and to make me feel safe but I do think we have moved past it and are ready to venture out! The only problem is doing any sort of trot or canter work is going to be hard out there. The footing is far from level or smooth. I'll have to see what I can do to clear some space and maybe mark off an arena of sorts. I have been wanting to set up a small dressage arena to practice Into B in anyway! :)

So here are my goals I'd like to accomplish by the end of November:

1. Giving to the bit laterally.

2. Giving to the bit vertically at a halt.

3. Starting doing more giving to the bit vertically at the walk.

4. Get lighter at all of the above.

5. Have him less inclined to be hunting the barn the whole ride.

6. Riding with more consistent contact.

I'd also love to be able to trailer to my friend A's place to have a playday with her and her horses (she's got a nice pasture/arena to ride in, beautiful barn) but with the holidays not sure that's going to be possible until maybe next year. 

The main issues we have right now are laziness and wandering. He is straight as an arrow going back to the barn but if I'm headed away he is resistant to the bit and weaves and wobbles and tries to turn around unless I'm on him pretty constant. And all of this at a snails pace, lol.

I was so pleased with him and had so much fun just tooling around out there. I did a lot of just standing and working on getting him responding better to both lateral and vertical flexion. He's getting a bit better each time. 

I just remembered I did ride the day before too a tad. I noticed after this ride that in the late afternoon early evening we have worse rides. It wasn't bad per say, just not as good. He is more likely to be harder to get to cooperate and just not as perky. Anyway we had a few good moments and it was another ride, so thats a win!

I wanted to ride this past weekend but didn't get a chance. Hopefully will have time this week, but with daylight saving time ending that means it gets dark pretty fast, so I'm betting I will have to wait until Friday again. 

So last weeks lesson was one of the worse I've had! The one lady I was riding with fell off and I about fell off a few times! It was the day after Halloween...I think it rubbed off on our lesson! LOL.

Anyway I was riding Charlie again. I had a great lesson with him the last time I rode him so I was kind of excited (but a tad nervous also) to ride him again. We did even better I think this lesson then the last, I cantered him for the first time and it went well, and also did quite a few more jumps with him. I also found out that LEG then hand gets him to round to the bit. Duh. Also I had a bit of time to myself with there being two other riders, and I found out if I didn't approach the jump until I had him on the bit and at a good steady pace he jumped AWESOME and quiet. If he didn't feel right we would have an awful, 'pop up jump. Several times after we did a good jump L would yell "he LOVES YOU!!" Lol.

My fav of the night

So we were doing so well she wanted us to do these three jumps in succession. Well we were trotting quite relaxed and well up to our first vertical and BLAM, he refuses. Eh, I kind of just sat there on his neck a moment like what just happened? LOL, he proceeds to do it again until I finally kicked him over it. Then we come around again and he refuses again. Gahh, L was so upset with him, she was saying he was in big trouble! LOL. Well I made him step over it and we tried again and got him to go over. So after that I was sort of nervous thinking about almost going over his shoulder. Plus I was so tired at this point with it being the end of the lesson. But I jumped our good jump really well one more time and called it. Hoping we do better jumping our next time out! Charlie is much more green then the other lesson horses so I have to be better riding him. I'm just not that good at jumping yet!

My riding lessons have been moved to Monday for the time being. An hour earlier so we can beat the dark. I'm hoping I will have no trouble getting out of work early and also passing off the littlest stinker to her daddy. I'll blog about our ride later!

The hubby and I made our first stand to sell yesterday afternoon! We are going to stain it a pretty dark brown. 

My man is so good with his hands! 

Until later!