And I thought I should let you know Bella is no longer here. We sold her to a fellow Parelli student in the area and she is doing much better already. After having owned her for about 2 years and not riding much at all, her new owner rode her the 5th day she got her. We're very excited for them.
And I had an incredible horse-filled day today. Started out at 9 this morning playing with Queen. She's a LBE beautiful QH, about 15.2ish hands, 9 years old. I actually found her when I was looking for a place to possibly board Moose for the winter, and they told me she was for sale and I just loved her from looking at her. She's incredibly gorgeous. And Parelli-trained too. :) She was soooooo light it was amazing. You used your legs and the reins to turn her, but the legs were like inside your skin. Like I thought, "let's turn right," and did the motions inside my skin for turning as I wanted and she would follow right along. It was absolutely phenomenal. She blew my mind. The only thing Queen was working on was cantering. I surprised myself, I actually felt confident enough to canter on her, even though they said it needed work. Wasn't terrible though. I now feel an itch to canter on Moose! I haven't had the confidence to canter in a long time.
So I will admit I am now trying to figure out if there is any possible way I could fit another horse into my life. I am planning on going back to Farrah's for the summer but hauling 2 horses would be doubly expensive and leaving Queen here by herself for the summer with no handling would be unfair to both my parents taking care of her and Queen. And I have no money with which to pay them. If they were willing to just give her away, then Moose could stay here and have a buddy but then if she had any vet bills I wouldn't have the money to pay for them because I'd have to buy hay. So as you can see it's all a huge mess but I'm thinking on it. There is another person going to see her tomorrow, so if she sells she sells I guess. I'd be kind of bummed, but I know at this point it's not feasible to take on another horse. Just doesn't help me from wishing I could. :) More to come on her though if I think of something. Because I am thinking. . . believe me.
Also thought I should update everyone, I actually have a job now playing with horses!!!!! I'm very thrilled, getting paid for what you want to make a career out of is certainly fulfilling. So I went over there today and played with 3 of their horses: if you remember Star, from long ago, I actually got to play with her today.
Things went much better than last time, I was able to rub her all over with the carrot stick and throw it over her back a little. She got VERY worried about her friens though. Right when I took her out of the pasture I had to do some major RB pattern interrupts, and then she calmed down. I spent a lot of time on Friendly, and also tried some Porcupine and a little bit of Driving. Star was starting to get really LB and actually more pushy than scared, but then I think the horses in the pasture got too far away or something and she went off the walls again. So it was kind of a bummer. I had her at a good spot, but we lost it. It's ok though. I was actually having a lot of trouble teaching her because all she wants to do is crowd you. And I was trying to get her confidence up with the carrot stick, but while maintaining some semblance of safety and teaching her. And having her so RB was not really helping. But I definitely learned more for next time. Since it rained this morning we couldn't really use the arena so that was a hindrance but also we're going to be playing on a 22 promptly next time. This pony needs the room. She can go have her RB freak-outs over there.
Also, got to play with Lily. She was more of an introvert, but she seemed as inexperienced as Star. The only difference was Lily wanted to do nothing but eat. I was trying to teach her Porcupine and do some Friendly, and it was pretty humorous, she'd bring her head up in time to be worried or move and then dive back down again. So we're going to install a head down cue pretty quick. ;)
Lastly, I played with Dazzle today too. Dazzle was the horse you ride when you're ponying one of the more greener horses, so she kind of knew the deal. Well I was told she was pretty good at Liberty stuff, so I turned her loose in the round pen. I guess they had a different concept of Liberty than I did because she didn't really know any of the games. She knew Stick To Me walk and trot, but that's about it. And that was after playing the Catching Game once or twice.
But the really really neat thing about Dazzle is the way she rides. Oh was it magnificent! It was so incredibly similar to Queen I could've cried! (jk jk) But I felt so spoiled, 2 rides on incredibly amazing horses in one day. . . how lucky am I? Before today, I have never ridden any horses as well-trained in riding as these two were. Queen was actually the favorite because Dazzle didn't stop as lightly and it took a bit to get her to go whereas Queen was very light in everything. But it was just excellent, I felt very safe on her and she didn't worry me one bit.
And then once I got home, I headed to a stable down the road to watch my friend ride her horse for a Pony Club event. I was too late though, I arrived just in time for the last ride, but I got to see her mom ride. It went pretty well, they were going eventing and I've never watched that in person before. The horses were all very very pretty and seemed content with life.
Then I actually returned home and played with Moose. He did so excellent I can't even say. It was quite a nice break to play with an advanced horse, one that is familiar with me. The youngsters can be quite challenging on how to get a communication system set up, so I was doubly thankful for Moose. But it was getting kind of late so rather than ride like I had intended I just played with cantering. We've been practicing cantering on the Circling Game for a little while now as I want to start developing some cantering things on the ground, like Stick to Me and eventually Z5 driving. Well, Moose was very connected to me tonight. He did all his gaits with slack in the rope, his trot seemed really nice and even and not racy. It looked balanced! So I asked him to canter out of it and he did do some playful head shaking and kicking a once or twice but he knew what I was asking for so this time instead of changing direction to help him I wanted to see if he could figure it out. And he did! I got about HALF A LAP of cantering each direction. I was so thrilled!!! Before I had only been asking for 3-5 strides and then I immediately brought him in. He excelled that in leaps and bounds tonight. It was fantastic.
Overall, super cool day today. Seriously horse-filled. And I also realized how much more savvy I have riding now than I had before I went to Farrah's. The change is astounding. My confidence level has increased quite a lot. When I first arrived at Farrah's, I was afraid to trot on Moose bareback. By the end of my time, it was no problem. I still didn't think (and don't currently) that I'm that good of a rider, but I had enough confidence to ask for the trot. Apparently, that has also translated to other horses which makes me very excited. I'm getting more savvy! Yahoo!
