Happy New Year!!!

So Aleythia rode Dash today... and she got bucked off.
It happened while I was riding Santana.
Dash was trotting around, on her own accord (really nicely too), and then she cantered, on her own accord. Then she exploded. I don't know if it was just the fact that when she exploded I had asked Santana to canter or if she was frightened by Aleythia's movements on her back.
Aleythia did do ground work before she got on too.
Aleythia and I got to thinking... Flicka never bucked us off... why?
We came to the conclusion it was because she didn't care what we did on her back. In some ways that was a bad thing, but in others it was good. We climbed all over her. We moved all around her just for the heck of it. Stand up, take a nap on her back, sit backwards on her... yep we did it all. She never bucked us off. She was so used to our shinanigans that she never bucked. Ok, maybe not never but never because of any movement we did on her.
So we are going to start doing that with the fillies. We did it today and we'll do it again the next time.
I'm kinda glad we're doing this. I got on Coffie bareback and started moving around and she was not okay with it. She wasn't gunna go bucking on me, but she wasn't relaxed. We'll do that before or after every session.
Toffy did really well today. I did a little bit of ground work reminding her what a tap on the neck meant or a tap on the hindquarters meant. I didn't feel like dealing with a sliding saddle so I got on the water pump and got on her from there. She took it pretty well. A few circles around me and she was fine. All I did was stand there and teach her what each signal meant. I would put my foot against her side, then tap her  neck with my crop. When she moved her shoulders over I stopped. When I wanted her to move her hindquarters I put my foot back and pressed with my heel, then tapped with my crop until she moved her hindquarters over. It did not take long for her to catch on.
I rode Santana and worked on getting him to flex at the walk and trot. I did canter once, but it wasn't real pretty.

I rode Misstack bareback too! Out in the paddock even. Nothing to eventful, just flexing.

 

Did anyone else stay up all night? Happy New Year!!!