Let's see. It's been a little while. The weather has been awful, and that makes it really hard to ride. We had one really nice 40 degree day a couple weeks ago and Aleythia and I went and made a snowman in the paddock, just to see what the horses would do. Ana decided his head didn't look good that way and started to eat it. I have pictures, but I'm too lazy to get them on the computer. The horses all crowded around it and one of the fillies decided it would make a good hoof rester. Ya Mr. snowman was dead in twenty minutes. And we went a couple more times in the last few weeks, but I can't remember those. Saturday we rode! We are working with Ana on something. Ana responds really well to voice and body language. The two combined can usually get a result, but it's mostly just voice. So Aleythia has been lungeing her and telling her in a really slow calm voice "slow walk" or "slow trot" and then uses a different voice to see if she can't get her to go faster too. Saturday Aleythia rode and I lunged. It was amazing. Ana is brilliant. We could get her to do these slow mincing little steps at the walk. Trotting was a little harder because when we tell her to slow down she wanted to go back to the walk, but she did definitely go slower. It's a huge improvement. The fillies are doing good. They are just getting so big! We aren't doing a whole lot with them. Right now all we really want them to learn is neck reigning. If it was warmer I would be doing tons of trail rides, but it's no fun when it's always below ten degrees.
Ya know what's the problem with growing horses? Saddles don't fit! It helps to shimmy them up with like a towel or something in the front, but sometimes it doesn't work. Especially with Frosty. Aleythia was riding and the saddle pretty much slipped forward on to Frosty's neck. She didn't like that and bucked. So I think that until she levels out we're just going to ride her bareback.
Sunday we went to Holly's and rode her horses. I rode Olly bareback! It was so much fun! I think I have better balance when I'm bareback because I don't have the saddle to rely on. We did trotting, and cantering, and even a little jumping. He was such a good boy. Holly thinks he moves better without a saddle. I rode him for two hours, bouncy trot and all. I. am. sore. And to top it all off he has a pointy back. That started to hurt after two hours. Whenever I go to Holly's my goal is to get sore. It means I'm actually doing something. I'm working on muscles I don't normally get a chance to work on because I'm training. It's nice not to have to train and just concentrate on your own riding.
