No other happiness could be as great as this :)

242 miles later, I am enjoying another pony weekend :) The rope I had up for my round pen has mysteriously vanished, and the arena has turned into a bushy, goat head infested forest, so play area it was :) I grabbed Cheyenne and we warmed up with a little OL play.. she was LB, sluggish, and did what I asked, but she was by no means connected. Just happy to be next to her, I thought "I don't care" and just hopped on bridleless after she had been untouched for over a month. She still wasn't going anywhere fast, but she decided to pretend like she didn't know any of her leg or neck string cues, so it was back to ground work to get a good connection going and get that responsiveness back. It took about two minutes haha. We played the yo-yo game which quickly woke her up when I didn't allow her to fiddle with anything and everything as she thought about backing, and then we moved onto "a million transitions" on the circle game both ways. Tracking left she tried to convince me she didn't have the physical ability to walk, but once she finally offered consistent down transitions and maintained the walk for an entire lap we switched directions and tracking right they were near flawless :) We played STM in a rapid "walking for two strides.. NOW TROT!! Ooh now we're stopping and backing five strides! Now trot two! Now walk! Back up again!" and she was quickly matching me step for step. Her expression improved and her eyes unglazed.. she knew Momma was back!

I put her back to bed for a few hours during the heat of the day, and after I took her halter off she was a totally different horse than when I went in to halter her :) In the beginning she wanted to play, but she seemed indifferent to me and basically had an unconcerned, alpha mare attitude. However when putting her back, she was glued to my side with a happy, content expression, and as I walked back to the house she hung her head over the railing and watched me all the way back to the door. Aaah, the little things in life :)

I went back out around 6:00, this time with my 12' line as well, ready to ride. I really wanted to focus on responsiveness, and kind of go back and refine the basics. It's funny how gentle we try to be with these animals, and rightly so as they are very sensitive, but watching them interact together opens my eyes to how lenient I have been when I ask them to do something. I walked into the pasture, and as per usual I was instantly surrounded by four eager muzzles. Cheyenne put her barrel up next to me trying to claim my right side, and when Gwen tried to approach Chey charged her, sending her into the loafing shed. When Gwen came back, all Cheyenne had to do was pin her ears and push the air with her nose and Gweny went flying. How interesting! Phases in the backwards order. Straight to phase 4, and the next time it took what I would guess would be a phase two? Either way, it was extremely effective and what better way to study horse behavior than straight from the source.

We went into the play area and on the 22' line and after the previous session her responsiveness improved ten fold. Yo-yo was snappy and she was responding off of subtle cues. I drug the 100 gallon water trough into the play pen (after evicting the world's largest black widow.. I felt imaginary spiders all over my skin for the next 10 minutes) and turned it upside down for a more challenging jump for her. This mare totally blew my mind! I've only asked her to go over it a handful of times before, and not only is it taller than most of my other jumps but it is also solid and has some width to it. Her little 14.3hh bad self cleared it with room to spare and gorgeous form, I might add! The next Theodore O'Connor? You betcha!

I switched to the 12' line, tied it into reins, and jumped on bareback to play with a million transitions to get her focused and relaxed. This is seriously one of the greatest patterns of all time next to the figure eight for so many reasons. It didn't take long for her to start focusing on me, and once we got good downward transitions I knew she was focused. Being bareback on her slick summer coat (and Arabian like frame) it can be hard to stay centered on her, so I made it a point to figure it out tonight. I am fortunate enough to have pretty long legs, so I made a conscious effort to stretch my legs as far down her barrel as possible and keep my seat centered. It worked really well, and I also as a side bonus figured out if I round my back (I'm sure it doesn't look correct) when I ask for an upward transition into the trot, not only am I more secure, but it couples perfectly with squeezing by cheeks for her cue. I have never felt so fluid trotting on her bareback in my entire life! I have pretty solid bareback balance on most horses, but she is a particularly hard one to sit between a thin frame and her ADHD swervy movements, but tonight it really clicked and it felt incredible! Such a great break through!

We spent the rest of the night going over smaller jumps and reminding her that just because there is grass in the field doesn't mean it is an on-the-go buffet ;) She felt so amazing, I felt every happy side effect a person could possibly feel! Light, energetic, bubbly, enthusiastic, and totally in flow with my girl. I had a sudden urge to gallop through all of the pastures and jump everything in sight, however being bareback and her feeling like an equine slip n' slide, I figured I would take our trotting success as enough of a win and call it a night. I let her grub out as I set up the cones into a question box for tomorrow, and put her to bed. We spent some good quality time together, scratching her in all her favorite places (in her ears, on her belly button, and in between her teets). While I was in town I picked up a Himalayan natural salt block and was super excited to see how they liked it! Chey, as you can see below, basically molested it from every angle and seemed pretty excited about it :) They get vitamins and have a salt block, so she shouldn't have been lacking too much salt, but she acted like it was the best thing ever. Which, in the summer, it probably is. A well deserved reward after an incredible session :) I can't wait for tomorrow!

Grubbin'!

The smile of approval on her new treat!

Happy ladies waiting for their turn to play :)