Tuesday, September 30, 2014

I Rode My Horse!!!

This was not an unintentional ride, I climbed aboard with every intention of riding.

We don't have a round pen and Skeets and I have never figured out the whole longing thing, so we're not doing this "right".  But, hell, every time I try to train "according to the rules", we don't make any progress.

We just started introducing neck reining from the ground a couple of weeks ago, and she mostly gets it.  With Bill's first ride last week, the transfer of information from the ground to her back started, plus she figured out she can go forward and carry weight.  Last week's first ride made my first ride go much more smoothly.



15 comments:

Brenda said...

Congratulations! It must've been so exciting when you were able to get her to move forward and start to listen to your requests. You could almost see the wheels in her brain spinning as she was trying to figure things out.

Allenspark Lodge said...

It certainly was a proud moment yesterday - both the horse and my daughter. I couldn't even ride bareback when I started either of mine; that came later for me, although now it's my favorite mode. So for her to hop on a green, green horse bareback and stay that calm - wow! And Skeeter was impressive; did you notice the loose dog in the pen, Bill wandering around with a camera, and of course, Copper nuzzling me with his nose (you'll see ears pop up occasionally) while I was trying to film? That's a whole lot for a young horse to focus through!

A job well done!
Mom

Brenda said...

Yes, I did notice the loose dog and Copper tring to "help" and Skeeter remained calm and Gundam was very focused. I'm impressed all the way around. In you, too, for being able to keep filming. I would've started laughing as soon as Copper decided to get in on the act.

Brenda said...

Sorry. Gundam=GunDiva...darn auto-correct

Achieve1dream said...

Yay!!!!!! Congrats!! The first ride is so awesome isn't it? I'm glad I'm not the only one who did my first ride bareback. :D Actually Chrome's first nine rides and lots of them even after that point were bareback.

Oh could her confusion about turning right have something to do with how the rope was tied? It looks like the right side is tied to the middle or to the throat part instead of to the noseband. Anyway it was just a thought. I think she did amazing for her second ride. :D It seems impossible that she was a wild horse so recently. :)

Shirley said...

Well done! Nice to see her staying nice and calm. The lateral flexion is something you can work on from the ground some more so that she understands it when you are on her.
You are gonna have fun with her!

Anonymous said...

I'm amazed that your first rides are bareback - just a different world to the horse world I grew up in I guess. Skeeter looks really calm and reasonable focussed. I reckon that having all the usual suspects hanging out in her paddock was probably a good thing? It makes less of a big deal out of whats happening, maybe.
Anyhow WELL DONE! Bon boulot as the French say!

GunDiva said...

A few years ago, I never would have considered bareback for my first ride, but it's now my preferred riding method. First, it's excellent for improving your seat and mine really needs improvement and second, there's nothing to get hung up on should we have a rodeo. I'll get a saddle on her for a ride in the next couple of weeks, probably. She has to be broke to ride both, but I'm lazy and saddling is just so much work :)

GunDiva said...

She's never liked her right side, so we'll definitely be working on it. When we first started leading, it was like she didn't know her right side existed.

GunDiva said...

Maybe it's the placement of the rope, but she has never liked her right side. We'll work on it from the ground some.

GunDiva said...

I liked Gundam :)

GunDiva said...

Copper has become very much a love bug, which is a bit surpassing because he was slightly reserved when he came home from the pens.

GunDiva said...

I could feel her thinking things through. She's a smart one, that Skeeter.

GunDiva said...

Remember when we first started riding bareback? It was terrifying. I would never have thought when I barely made it around the block on Meeker that I'd be so comfortable bareback that I'd start a horse that way. Seems so long ago that we "learned" bareback.

Achieve1dream said...

Those are the exact same reasons I started Chrome bareback lol.