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