In The Arena

Tonight I rode in the arena and learned some things about my horse. She is as responsive as I thought but is stubborn too. She doesn't like to be around horses that she doesn't "know". She rides well in the trailer but doesn't like to stay in the Walmart parking lot too long. (Too bad.)

We started fine tuning control tonight. She has the leg yield thing down pretty good so we worked on extending her walk, turn on the forehand and turn on the haunch. We're right at the beginning and I know we have a long way to go. I've been really patient with this horse because she's the last horse I will buy for myself and I intend to have her for a long time.

When I was a kid I showed several different types of horses. I was a rider, however, and not a trainer. I rode reining, pleasure, equitation, trail, hunter, jumper, 5 gaited and 3 gaited saddle horses. I worked Pasos for a job in college. So I know how to ride a finished horse but not how to get a green horse through the stages to be finished. This is really fun (but sometimes frustrating) to start from the ground up.

We rode for about 2 hours in the arena. They have barrels, poles, a teeter totter bridge and a fake pond. It was great to be able to work on those obstacles. Voosh didn't like the teeter totter at first because I rode her from the up end to the down. So the first step up made the bridge fall away from her. Took three tries to get her to put both front feet on it. Then she was fine.

We plan on riding in the arena again next week. Meantime......back on the trail.