Day 45--a 6hour clinic and bareback beginnings

Cash and I spent the bulk of last week working on getting our basics better and better--stopping soft and straight, leg yielding at the walk and trot, more energetic upward transitions, etc. And, of course, getting rid of his gate magnetism. Each ride he improves with that, but we really had to work on him not pushing his shoulder out towards the gate in the arena, and therefore drifting towards the gate whenever we do a circle or such. I think the equine motivational device (aka dressage whip) may come into play soon if he doesn't give up the gate drift. Seems like even if I make him work-work-work at the gate and then go rest elsewhere he still gets drawn towards it, so I think the E.M.D. may provide some extra incentive to not even give the gate drift thing a try.

We did an all day (6 hours with a lunch break in the middle) clinic on Saturday with Amy Lesatz, our cowhorse trainer. This wasn't a cow clinic, but we worked on stuff that will help us be better on the cattle. The clinic was in Longmont, so Cash got to see a new place--the outdoor arena in the morning and then the indoor arena when the drizzle turned to real rain in the afternoon. Cash was excellent until he got tired of cantering, especially to the right. He started out great to the left and then decided he was done and really, really wanted to come into the group of horses standing in the middle of the arena. So I let him go to the middle, but made him work-work-work in the middle until he made the decision on his own to leave the middle, then he got to rest. Near the horses in the middle = hard work, choosing to leave the horses in the middle that once seemed so appealing = rest. He eventually "got it" each time we worked on it, but boy did he ever make me work hard that day. But that made two things really clear to me--we need to get our right lead better, and I super-duper really need to make those areas of "draw" less appealing to Cash. After 6 hours of work that day, I think both Cash and I slept well that night.

Since we worked so hard Saturday, and since he had a chiropractic adjustment afterwards, we took it easy Sunday and Monday and started playing around bareback. I've never had an issue with a horse when they're being ridden bareback for the first time, and Cash was no exception. He definitely had to get used to the different feel, but he took it all in stride. By the end of our second bareback ride, he was steering completely off of my leg at the walk--even over our obstacles. You can see in the pictures that I'm riding around with my hands on my hips. The last few pictures are of us backing up and doing a turn on the haunches off of his neckrope only. We both still need to get comfortable trotting bareback together before I start steering him off of my leg bareback in the trot, but we're getting there...bareback and bridleless, here we come!

His back, however, is not exactly a wide and comfortable back to ride on. All I have to say is I may be investing in some padded bicycling shorts or something soon!

And we also played around with some more groundwork stuff--I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Day 45--almost halfway there on our 100 day journey!