Long Time No Blog!!!

So I quit lessons for right now, because basketball started and I had games on Monday my lesson day. I think I am going to start up again if I get a new horse which I am giving thought. One of the problems I have though is I need to sell Joy, that should be interesting considering the economy and the price of hay. If you know anyone that is interested in buying a horse tell me. I will take(for the most part) what I ca get for her.

Oct. 6, 2008

Today we worked on lunging again, the goal is to not cross fire. When she picks up a canter she has the right lead but then she cross fires. As soon as she goes once around the circle she can go back to a trot, we will work from there on going longer. We worked on hunch turns more and reviewed the front turns. Joy has a hard time paying attention even in an enclosed arena she is over in la-la land. After I lunged her, I rode her. We worked again on bending to the inside and and walking in a straight line at the same time. I rode a trot posting and sitting. The teacher wants me to be on the outside diagonal when I trot. A new exercise we have to do is to "massage" her mouth by pulling back or down on the bit(on the ground.) My homework this week is 1) the mouth exercise 2) lunging with the right leads 3) riding with her neck bent inside 4) four hand turns and hunch turns.

Sept. 29, 2008

This week when Joy got out of the trailer she was really nervous and was behaving bad. She contined to be naughty when we got inside the arena. Finally after forever she was nice. We reviewed the frunt pass and then and lunged her. she still is crossfiring and is in really bad shape. We'll keep working at it though. Last night she was cantering really well and doing pretty good. She has a problem with doing the front turn thing in the left side so we are still working on that. At the lesson we also worked on her turning her head onto the center while I am riding her. We also reviewed the front turn thingy when was riding her, she did ok.

Sept. 22, 2008

Well, this was my second week of lessons. Joy is improving very quickly. Last Friday, we went and bought a chain, since then she has shown me alot more respect. Joy is very eager to learn and please you. This week we worked on lunging with the right lead, the inner front and back leading the pace. Her better side has always been her right, so she did better on this side. After a easy lunge for about 10 minutes, she was already panting, so we stopped and learned hunch turns. She did pretty good but learning them takes more time to learn than, the other turn we learned last week(my mind is blank so i don't remember what it is called.) Joy has a balance problem, she keeps her head up so she doesn't look where she is going and she throws her body off balance. Some of that might be me, but she does it when she lunges too. Our "homework" this week is to work on lunging which should help the balance problem and to work on hunch turns. I am also supposed to ride her and work on going from a walk to a canter. Kisses mean canter and clucks mean trot. I have to tell her those signals when I want her to go faster. I should always use the same one.