Gotta Do More Baby Steppin

~Friday~
Aleythia and I decided that Frosty was doing well enough that we could try cantering. I would longe her while Aleythia rode. First we did some groundwork, and I have a couple pictures of Frosty cantering.

happy trot

 

Isn't that a beautiful canter? Look at how far under she reaches with her back feet. Love it! Oh she can switch leads too. Which is pretty awesome.

 

Frosty was just all go. She just wanted to faster.

Aleythia got on and rode around for a little bit and she tried to canter by herself, but Frosty wasn't doing it, and the saddle was slipping forward.

We fixed the saddle and I got in the middle and we tried it again. It went something like this.

I asked her to canter and she did go into a faster trot, but not a canter.... then she started bucking. Aleythia stayed on and we tried it again. Aleythia was complaining that the saddle kept slipping forward. Once again a fast trot, and maybe an effort to canter, but then she started bucking again. The back end of the saddle was off her back and the front end was pushed up against her neck. Aleythia fell off over her shoulder and Frosty kept bucking.

Now go look at that picture of Frosty cantering. This time look at the saddle. That's what happens when she goes faster.

We switched out that saddle for a smaller one. It doesn't fit Aleythia and me very well, but maybe it would help with the slipping.

Aleythia got on again and just trotted around. The saddle didn't slip as much as the other one. I also want to see if a back cinch will help anything. We only have one and it goes onto Misstack's saddle, but maybe it will work. Otherwise we'll have to see about getting a few.

I was riding Toffy and I decided that we would use the small saddle on her too. So we'll see.

But as of yet we've been bucked off of all the fillies but one. Coffie. My goal. Never get bucked off of Coffie. She is usually the last horse we work with so maybe by then we get it right. One benefit of having four horses to train. You can make it better for the next horse.

Aleythia worked with Coffie and Dash. She just did ground work. And had them canter with a saddle.

ooh another thing we decided was that we're gunna get the fillies really used to and comfortable with trotting before we move onto cantering.

Tip of the Day- When training horses the slower you go the faster you progress.

In other words if you can break each training step into as small as pieces as possible training will go faster, because they are getting prepared for that next step.

So cantering will be put off for a little while longer.

I rode Misstack and Santana too. They were pretty good. All I worked on was neck reining and stopping. Both of them have the worst stop ever. Like it takes quite a bit to get them to stop when I pull back on the bit. So what I've started doing is relaxing into my saddle and thinking stop. If that doesn't work I take a light hold of the reins. If that doesn't work we do a one rein stop. I'll let you know how well that works in a couple of weeks.

I think that it will be really easy to teach the fillies neck reining. But I'll talk about that another time.

Aleythia rode Ana too.

So we got seven horses done. Woot Woot!

Yesterday it was hot! I wore a T-shirt and rolled up the sleeves. Standing in the sun was hot. It was nice in the barn. Not so much outside. It wasn't even that bad. It's more like I'm used to twenty degree weather and then all the sudden we're getting sixty degree weather.

But expect another post in the near future on today. I haven't gone yet so I'll have a couple stories when I get back. Whether I finish it today or another is up for debate. 

I'm sad cause I'll be gone Monday and Tuesday so I won't get to work with horses. I'm happy cause I'm going to a FFA state thingy. It'll be fun.