A Big Night for Tari

Tonight I headed out the the barn at 630PM to attempt to ride. At first I thought I was crazy because it was already dark. There is one street light that casts enough light over one corner of the ring that makes riding visable, but thats about it.

The rest of the ring is pretty dark and only lit by moonlight, and there are shadows of the jumps, barrels and poles all over the place.

I got Tari out, and tied her to the trailer and she whinnied to her pasture mates, only once though. Probably because they didn't respond.

I got her out and walked her around the lit end of the ring in big weaving circles.

My goal for the last few weeks have been to get her to stop pulling on my hands which she is better about and to stop sticking her shoulder out when I ask her to turn or bend while we are walking/trotting.

While I'm warming her up I do lots of figure 8 serpentine like things using my legs and trying to "neck rein" her around. I really want her moving off my leg, but I first ask with my leg, then that side rein, then I 'pull' her around if she still hasn't gotten it. She has gotten VERY good about moving over when I put my leg on her. Tonight I barely had to pick up the direct rein to get her turning as sharp as I wanted.

After I warmed her up, I trotted her in big circles trying to get her to bend on a left circle. She doesn't really like going to the left, she is better to the right. After I trotted her in circles and she was bending really well I decided I'd go see what she thought of the dark scary side of the ring. She didn't care. I walked her a few times around the ring and she didn't care about the shadows and she didn't think the jumps stands and ground poles had suddenly appeared to come eat her. Sundance would NOT have been good to ride in the dark tonight.

Another small, less important goal at the moment is getting her to lope. She gets real lazy and stops when she feels like it. The best thing about her loping is that she does usually pick up the correct lead as long as I use my legs. (YAY!) So since she wasn't afraid of the dark end, I decided to try and lope her around the ring. And I did. She did great. She went two WHOLE times around the ring in both directions without stopping. She was pooped when she got done, but she did it!

And finally, the last 'great accomplishment' of the night was that I felt for the first time like she's starting to 'get' the pattern. I've been walking her to the barrel stopping and backing since I got her going good under saddle about a month ago. And another gripe I've had with her is that I get so frustrated that she doesn't walk straight to anything, she zig zags. BUT, tonight, she stopped on her own at all the barrels. She was super light and easy to turn around the barrels and after I got her pointed to the next barrel, she walked straight to her pocket like she KNEW she was going there! WOOHOO!

I was so very very pleased with her tonight. I feel like we are accomplishing big things each and every time we ride now. Its starting to click in her head.

Have I said how much I love this mare?