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| One of the horse-eating ponds on the trail :) |
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| At the end of the trail, enjoying the view :) |
After our trail ride I noticed she had dry spots above her scapula and ruffled air down either side of her spine. After some help from a Parelli Professional on Parelli Connect I learned that her saddle is pinching her withers and too wide on her back. I decided it was time to do some saddle fitting, so last weekend I spent all my horsey time measuring the withers and back of Cheyenne and Gweny, and to my surprise Cheyenne has extra wide withers (I'm guessing because her withers are nearly non-existent so it's really sitting more on her shoulders) and Gweny's are medium wide (her withers are taller but narrower). My western saddle fits neither of my horses, and so I think it's time to sell a few saddles and buy two newer, well fitting saddles :)
Today was pretty random. I had no real plan, and just decided what our game plan was while haltering. With Cheyenne I suddenly felt a spark up my ass to finally try a spin at liberty, so off to the round pen we went. We practiced online for about 10 minutes having her do her spin around a cone so she had a reason to spin (to circle the cone) and then I felt she had enough of a general gist of the exercise to throw the halter off and try it at liberty. She needed a little reassurance after the change of direction to keep turning, but she really hung in there and just blew my socks off :) We did it a few more times just to solidify what she learned, and called it a day.
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| Our first spin at liberty |
With Gweny I am embarrassingly not as far as I should be. Yes she is LBI and challenges me constantly for dominance which slows progress, but with only getting to see my girls once a week, and Cheyenne being my much more advanced horse, it's easy to put Gwen on the back burner. Alanna Farrell, my Parelli Instructor helped me out with my impulsion issues under saddle via video coaching and just doing more point-to-point and having a true destination in mind made a huge difference in our riding. She started to see me as more of a leader since I had a game plan and stuck to it, and in one ride offered me more than she had in all of our other rides combined. Today however I had a different game plan for her ;) We did something I have been putting off for far too long, and that is change of direction. She picked it up so quickly! When I taught Cheyenne I had to use the fence to stop her so I could turn her around and finish the change, but with Gweny she just needed a little driving game with the carrot stick, and she was off in the other direction! I think a big factor was that I am a lot clearer now with my ques than I was when I taught Chey because I was learning as well, but it made me feel great that a mare with dominant, argumentative tendencies didn't put up a fight when asked to change directions, which is a dominate request. We did it a few times both ways and called it a night :) I am so blown away by these two incredible girls, and I can't believe I'm the one who gets to learn and play with them. I feel so honored and so lucky to have them in my life. One great day in the pasture makes the other six days of the week seem so much better.
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| Gweny taking a well deserved break |
