So yesterday, I had Charm ground drive a little, played some maintaining gait games in the round pen, then I hitched him up and ground drove him all around with the cart attached. He was doing SO well (okay, once he realized that running into the shafts didn't turn it lol). Once he mastered bending around the turn the proper way, I drove him through the barn aisle, picked up a shavings bag, and chucked it in! He did wonderful with his little passenger, he didn't mind the extra weight at all. Even when it got stuck on some long weeds, he just pivotted out of it and thought his way through it. Now THAT's my prior and proper preparation paying off! I'm so proud of him. Here's the only pic I got yesterday, of his shavings bag passenger. It's somewhat hard to steer a green horse with one hand, take a pic with the other, and make sure you get his face on camera LOL.... but you can see the important stuff.
His voice cues are really awesome! I wasn't sure how he'd take weight in the cart on the breeching with his first downward transition, but I asked him to trot... off he went, said woah, and he slammed on the brakes AND backed up a step like we practiced with me pulling on the breeching. Sure beats a horse that wasn't introduced to it jumping away from it. Been there done that!
Another awesome "first" of today was I got on Xena in the new saddle this morning! She didn't mind at all, and she let me fiddle with shims before I got everything right. We pretty much just grazed and walked around, but it was fun. Nice to know I have something that fits her.
Got lots more horseys to play with before I'm outta daylight!
No comments:
Post a Comment