Evening comes early these days. 2 more weeks to the solstice and longer days!
I took Sophie for a walk in hand, just to see how she is on walks through the bush. I don't know if she has ever walked among trees, bring a prairie horse.
She was calm, but was deep breathing. Not spooky, but looked at everything. She was nice and light on the lead line, but did tend to walk a bit too close to me, which was easily corrected.
The pathways are a bit slippery now, so in hand work is better than riding. I do intend to ride her soon... be patient! Just need one day of melting to soften up the round pen sand before I get on her.
I showed her the pond, which has filled back up again with all the heavy rains that swelled the rivers. One of the things I like about her is that she willingly walks through puddles, so I am looking forward to riding throuigh the pond next spring and into the river next summer.
Linda left a comment that Sophie is probably used to a lot of just straight riding with not much bend asked for, and I have to agree with that. Part of our training program will be around getting her to bend softly laterally and eventually vertically. It will be interesting to see if she responds to leg pressure under saddle, and to prepare for that I will be doing some ground exercises to help her learn what is asked.
5 comments:
I think going slow and progressing step by step is the best way.
You are wise to stay off your new mare until conditions feel right. Haste makes waste. I agreed with Linda too. Add to that if used on a Prairie, it is likely she was asked to cover ground for extended rides. I truly hope Sophie proves to be the safe riding partner you are hoping for. Beautiful scenery!!
You are learning more about Sophie every day and she is learning about you too!
It made me curious, because we have had a few great horses who came to us like that. The one who comes to mind a lot when I see you working with Sophie is our Red. His work ethic was the most deeply ingrained I had ever seen, but bending was not part of his repertoire. š¤£ She seems like a lovely horse.
Almost looks like in the top 2 photos that she's a contemplative horse, just absorbing the beautiful scenery, maybe a ride through it.
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