Good Fridays

Yesterday was a good day to. It rained and we played a little in the rain, but nothing serious. Just little liberty things.

Today was a really good day though. It was cloudyish this morning, but it cleared up really nice. It has been a long sleeve day, and I think Mo was glad for the reprieve from the clasting warm weather we have had. I have no complaints either way. If it is above zero, I am good with it!!

Mo was in a good mood. She walked up to me happily. And stuck with me for the whole walk to the trailer across the pasture. She ended up running away from me later though because I was talking to someone without keeping her entertained. It wasnt hard to go get her though. We played a little on the 45' and in the round pen at liberty, working on our liberty figure eights at a trot. Our draw is getting pretty good! I can get her to trot to me most times even!

I practiced a little bit of trying to mount from the neck but it didnt go so well so I am not sure how I am going to procede with that. Mo acts like I am to much weight for her to move around, which I very well may be. I really dont know. I am going to experiment some more with it another day.

I took Mo out on the 45 again, trying to break it in and we had some adrenaline which was fun to deal with. I like it when Mo has days like this because it is hard to motivate her when she is hot! I saddled her up and took out to play some more online, we worked on our changes of direction and maintaing gait.

I decided to ride in the Cradle bridle today to do some more exprimenting, and I think it went prett well. Me and Mo played around with changes within gait and our freestyle in my made up 'arena' around the logs. Mo is finally figuring out that she cant go faster under saddle. I am happy for that because her cute little hunter canter isnt good for everything! We did some trotting over the logs, the single ones and the medium pile. We *almost* went over the big pile, but then I had a threshold because I wasnt sure if she was going to do a deer jump and throw me off, so I dismounted. I attached my rein to her throatlatch and sent her over the big jump by herself. She did it three times and each time I was thinking to myself "Yea, I could ride that" so I remounted and came around at it again. This time WE JUMPED IT!!! YEY!!!

B told me later that it was three feet high! GO MO!!! That was REALLY cool! The jumping day session in ..Fluidity 1? really helped Mo figure out her jumping ability! We went around some more, not over the big one, but the other ones, cantering over them and helping Mo find her distance. That was really cool.

Mo had some more adrenaline after a rest break so we did some canter laps around the lower pasture. When we came back over to the round pen we experimented with the exercise Linda demo'ed in a recent Savvy Club dvd about moving the haunches in a disengage vs engagement exercises. Our disengage is pretty goo dso we tried working on the engagemnt exercise which involves bending the head in the direction of travel and moving just the hindquarters over. Mo was pretty confused about it, and I am sure it was because of me not knowing quite where to be, but we got a few steps in both directions eventually and I left it at that.

After walking around some more I brought Mo over to the trailer to untack. B had vaccated the round pen so I put Mo back on the 45 and went in the to practice our change of direction and change of gait in simulating liberty. That went really well so after a bit I ditched the halter and went to sit on the fence just to relax for a minute, but Mo offered her back so I mounted her backwards and used her bum as my pillow and afterwards practiced our backing by the tail while riding. That cracks me up. I love it.

Eventually I let us out of the round pen and we rode around bareback and bridless around the pasture at all gaits. THAT was really fun. Really confidence inspiring! After bombing around for a while we went to stand by the round pen and I took a mini nap lying on Mo's back. She was a doll and just stood there.

B and I did a little mini cool off 'trail' ride around the pasture to finish and then called it a day.

Four and a half hours later, that seems like a fair enough assessment! I LOVE having nothing better to do for a day than to play with my horses!!! Mo is doing great!