Bittersweet ride..

Today was my last ride on Cheyenne before I move Friday :( It will start getting cold here in a month or so, and I usually don't get out to the pasture much once it gets wintery, so I don't feel like I'll get too far behind where I would have been, but it's still a little sad. My girls will stay in Pasco while I move back to the Seattle area until February, and then after that I have no idea. My boyfriend graduates in Feb, and we are hoping he lands a job in central WA where we can buy property and I will finally have MY pasture the way I want it! I'll still come home to visit as much as I can until the pass gets dangerous, and most of my time will be spent in the pasture. So today I just wanted to have fun before my pasture time gets scarce :)

I went out at 1:30 when Chey is usually trying to nap, so she was pretty laggy. I really wanted to just tootle around and have some bridleless fun, but she was sleepy and pretty nonsensitive since her mind was in sleep mode. I decided to take her out into the field and get her blood pumpin' ;) SUCH A GREAT TIME!!! I want everything to start transferring over to no reins, so I'm trying to get her more responsive to all my other aides. We did the weave to get her start paying attention, then did trotting point-to-points, and even went over the jump a few times before she finally began waking up and becoming connected. We worked on trot/walk/stop/back up transitions and staying sensitive. I've found she can't really feel my seat through the saddle, so I use my knees to squeeze instead of my cheeks when I want a downward transition or a halt which works pretty well. I never realized until today how much I rely on my reins to stop, which really blows my mind because I've been focusing on her response off my body so much. I hardly used my reins at all other than that, it was glorious! We were trotting quite a bit at first, and then we got some good long lopes in, and she even offered a flying lead change at one point!! She doesn't go balls to the walls when she runs which is surprising because she sure can do it when she is out playing, but I'm grateful for this because I never have to worry about speed, we just go! She was LOVING it, and it hardly took anything at all to ask for an upward OR downward transition! She was SO light to the touch on all my aids.. oh man... what a memorable ride :) Fast and fun! I really needed something like that today, and I feel it was a perfect note to end on before our hiatus. To cool her down I brought her back into the dry lot and we played Follow The Rail bridleless, some figure 8's, and pushed the other horses around a bit. She truly is an amazingly special mare, I have learned so much from her, and so blessed to have such a willing, loving partner <3

Goals and Advancement

Every time I go out into the pasture, especially with Cheyenne, I have something new to try. And for my little extrovert that's something she really needs and enjoys, otherwise she is bored and a little sour. I should have taped my L2 videos in February, I've been ready for it for way too long and Chey and I could do it all in our sleep. (Fear of failure, aka not getting a 2++ is holding me back a bit). We are even ready for most of L3, and we have even had some pretty insanely successful bridleless riding sessions, which I'm pretty proud of after all the prep we put into that. Gwen is coming along amazingly well OL, but mounted we still have a lot of pretty serious "forward" issues, as in hardly moving at all. But every time she puts a little more into it, I'm just doing my best to give her what she needs and not push her. It's funny to think that if I never had heard of PNH, I would be out there kicking her and probably have a riding crop out there, and ruining our relationship, along with her trust in me. Sometimes I find it interesting to compare the "two horse worlds" of training (PNH and non), and it just reiterates that I'm doing the right thing. 

However as great as all this sounds, I'm getting to the point where I could care less about my goals right now. I get in this funk every so often, and long for the days of riding aimlessly in the foothills, just running around like a mad Indian woman and her faithful pony, my only thought being fun. Don't get me wrong, I don't forget all my principles and un-do all of our hard work. I still go for a response from the lightest cue, use my proper aids and put my horse first, but I think having a day off where I don't think about how my audition videos will look is the most refreshing thing I can do. After all, I have horses because they provide me a freedom and happiness I can't get anywhere else. I just gotta remind myself it's okay to have a day where I can enjoy the spoils of our hours and hours of "good, better, best" and never ending self improvement, and just do whatever we wanna do :)