Tire Horse

Official Records Information:
Misty
1-10-10
45 minutes
Evening

Goals: Ride Misty freestyle in the driveway

Misty met me at the gate and I haltered her kneeling at her head. The haltering could improve because it took a minute for her to keep her head down near the halter. However, it was not bad because she put her head in the halter eagerly in the end and I stayed on my knees.

I had Misty in the halter with a carabiner clip attaching the savvy string to it. The carabiner clip acts like slobber straps by delaying the feel to the horse with its hinge action.

I brought her out and we walked together to the tire swing that is cut into horse form. There, I stood on the swing and had her come to me sideways so I could mount. She had no concerns for the swing's motion as I climbed on.

On the drive way, I worked on her sideways. She was dragging her hindquarters again, so just kept tapping the hindquarter that needed to go until she went correctly. After about 5 minutes, she was going sideways well both ways with light cue.

Next, I wanted to work on her stops with me. There are 3 trees next to the northern leg of the drive, so I had her trot between the trees and stop when she got to them. She had perfect stops going toward the road, but when we turned around to head in the other direction, she was not in sync at all. Then, backing up to where I had requested the stop was a huge issue. I just stayed persistent in the proper positions and she figured it out. I ended the session when she stopped nicely in the direction of the barn.

I worked the gate as though I were still riding. I would like to work on this concept some more, because it was interesting. I stood in her left zone 3 and had her come sideways toward me, which was difficult for her to understand at first because it meant she needed to squish me, so to speak, between her and the gate. I opened the gate when she was standing close enough for me to reach it if I were on her back. I let her through it by asking her to back into the pasture, abandoning the riding position. Usually, the moment I start to set her up to go backward through the gate, she finishes setting herself up and backs in/out on her own, but it took a moment for her to realize what was going on. To me, that means her mind was very engaged with the previous exercise and she was still trying to process what had happened.

So, that concludes my entry for today. I will post again soon.

Natural Horsewoman Out.