This month’s challenge is “Anything with poles.” The goal? Discover how comfortable your horse is with objects on the ground. Can she walk over a pole? ...a bunch of poles? ...trot? ...back up over one or more? Is she ready to start more advanced pole/cavalletti work?
Practices are always better than film time for us, because I get an agenda and they don’t like that. My friend was here to help, so we jumped on the opportunity to film.
Overall, awareness and confidence continue to build. Shiraz actually backed up over the tarp and surprised all of us. I gave her points for hitting the same pole with all four feet when she backed over it. (Something to work on.) And Jalila is showing flashes of brilliance. Our frustrations still outnumber the moments of brilliance but, as you will see, it doesn’t take much to keep me encouraged.
One discovery made last weekend (not on the video) = Jalila is starting to develop a nice lateral bend on her circles when we work around the round pen (the pedestals with a rope strung between, I’m on the inside and she is on the outside), but when I take that supporting element away, she leans like a motorcycle and falls in on the circle. Making that transition will be interesting.
(6:30 minutes/both horses)
Check it out:
Practices are always better than film time for us, because I get an agenda and they don’t like that. My friend was here to help, so we jumped on the opportunity to film.
Overall, awareness and confidence continue to build. Shiraz actually backed up over the tarp and surprised all of us. I gave her points for hitting the same pole with all four feet when she backed over it. (Something to work on.) And Jalila is showing flashes of brilliance. Our frustrations still outnumber the moments of brilliance but, as you will see, it doesn’t take much to keep me encouraged.
One discovery made last weekend (not on the video) = Jalila is starting to develop a nice lateral bend on her circles when we work around the round pen (the pedestals with a rope strung between, I’m on the inside and she is on the outside), but when I take that supporting element away, she leans like a motorcycle and falls in on the circle. Making that transition will be interesting.
(6:30 minutes/both horses)
Check it out: