WOW!!!!

Today, Tari had an epiphany. The light bulb came on. It clicked. After 3 days of working on turning on her rear end, she finally told me she understood.

I started her work out normally. Walking around, then trotting some circles. We were trotting on a large circle in the center of the ring. At one point she started to tip her nose in like she does when she's about to just bring it right to my leg and roll her hip out. But, today, when I picked up my outside rein and gently pressed my outside leg in her side to keep her straight, she turned and trotted in a very small circle. Through the whole circle I felt her inside hind stepping forward. She never once tried to roll her belly in the smaller circle. So, when the circle was done, I let her come out of it and go back to trotting our big circle. After a few rounds, we changed direction. Now, this way she didn't try to stick her hip out, but I tried to do the same thing in this direction to see how she'd turn. I slightly picked up the outside rein and pressed my leg into her side and she moved into a nice small circle, reaching forward with her inside hind. YAY!!!!
That was our first accomplishment of the day.

Then, I decided to try to lope some spiral circles and see if she could hold it together for those. Usually, once the circle gets smaller, she either sticks her hip out, or breaks to a trot. I think she's just not strong enough yet in the rear end to hold it together. So, we've been doing lots of long trotting lately to try to strengthen her hind quarters so this exercise is possible for her.

So, I started loping in the same circle we were previously trotting. Center of the ring, and a big circle at first. We loped, 2 circles, and then I brought her in a bit. Then a bit more, until finally, we were about as small as I was comfortable asking her to go and I asked for her to turn around as if we were turning a barrel and she did it!!! So I let her slowly come out of loping the circle until we were back out to the big circle. The whole time she was loping today she felt so light on her front end. She's finally using that big butt for what it's meant to be used for!

Then, the real test. Would she do this, on the pattern.

I walked her around the pattern. Asked her to stop and back up. Really asked her to pick up her shoulders and come around. She did great. We did it at a trot. Stop, hesitate. Back up, walk around. Then, I asked her to lope the pattern. Very light in the front end again. We get to our pocket, I sit, say whoa, pick up my outside, press my leg into her right side, and she comes around! Oh. My. Gosh. I was so happy. She had perfect turns on her 2nd and 3rd barrel too. Great, great, patterns tonight. Of course, no one was there to see it.

But, later, I took a student on a trail ride, and just before we left, another boarder had come out, and I took her through the pattern again, and asked the boarder to video. She did OK, the two I got on video, but I'll make excuses for her. She had sat at the trailer for about 20 minutes. And I didn't walk or trot the pattern before I did it, I just put her to it. The first one was not as graceful, but still a very big improvement on what she did a week and a half ago when I took her to triplecreek. After the first video, I trotted her through and tuned a bit, then loped again and it was much better.

After today, I feel like she said, "Hey, mom, I get it now. Is this what you want me to do?" I just wish I would have figured it out a few months ago!

Turning around

Today was the 4th day (not in a row) that I've worked on turning around on the fence with Tari. She has this bad habit of continuing to travel forward with her backend and lock up in the front. So, after researching, I really like the idea of helping her learn to turn around by using the fence. I ride along the fence and randomly ask her to turn into it, forcing her to drop her backend and pick up her front end. At first she still just stopped on her front end and whipped her butt around. But she quickly figured it out.

Today, I hopped on and rode her around bareback. I was trying to adjust my seat and my leg pressed against her side. She very quickly turned around. Not being in the saddle I about fell off! I was not expecting that. My first thought was that she was just being touchy. But, after warming her up for a few minutes, I walked around (the puddles of course) and instead of turning on the fence, we were in the middle of the ring. She still turned around really nicely. I was very proud of her. I hope the ring dries out enough by wednesday to get drug so that I can see if she can put those turns into action on the barrel pattern.

Oh, and P/S....I measured her today. She was 13.3 in the fall, and she's 14.1 now! My baby is growing up!

We're BACK!

I was recently informed that I should have better kept up with this blog.

Unfortunately, this year flew by, and I got very busy with CCWHA and showing and getting a 3rd horse, and work and the blog just got put to the side.

So, now hopefully, we'll be posting more updates on my little girl. She's doing great by the way!

This past year Tari was getting adjusted to going to CCWHA shows and we did well in Egg & Spoon. That's my favorite class, and we actually won a few times! I would enter her in some classes at the shows, and we got enough points in each class to get a trophy for each. I was very impressed with her! We also won reserve high point in the Adult gaming division. She made her momma proud for our first year together!

Over the year she's done well in the barrel & Pole classes. I think she's gonna be the only one of my 3 that is better at barrels than poles. But, we shall see. She still has time to improve.

All year she has been trying her hardest, and I think she really does enjoy her job. She is extremely smart and picks up new things quickly. I'm also really glad she has yet to become "marish". She definitely has her moments, but she still acts a bit like a baby. She loves to snuggle with me. She does act slightly like a child though. She'll hold a grudge in a heartbeat and she will let you know when you've hurt her feelings! I do love her though!

Ok...anyway...So her biggest issue with barrels this year has been turning. GO figure! She doesn't keep her butt under her coming out of the turn. She swaps leads in the back and counter canters to the next barrel. Besides being uncomfortable for me to ride, it causes her turns to be less tight, and essentially time consuming. SOO.... yesterday we did some exercises to get her working on her back end to strengthen it up and teach her to automatically stay on her back end in her turns.

First we did some work on the fence. I would turn her into the fence and ask her to do a 180 in the other direction. We'd go a few steps and turn into the fence in the other direction. She picked up quickly how to turn quickly, but she wasn't quite turning completely on her back end. She'd finish the turn on her front end, somehow. So then we just went to walking counter-arc circles. We'd walk in a circle with her nose tipped slightly to the outside to help push her hip to the inside to keep her back inside hind reaching forward. This worked well, for a little while, but I could tell she was getting frustrated. However, I knew as smart as she was, she got the idea of the exercises. So, I decided to just ask her to turn and we'd turn until she turned on her backend. If she would do that, I'd let her walk out of the turn. She liked this exercise, and I was right. She did this the best. After only a few minutes of wandering and randomly asking for a change of direction with my legs, she was sitting and turning. I wanted to make a correlation between turning randomly in the arena to turning around the barrel, so we walked the pattern once and I asked for her to turn, just like I had while we were wandering. She turned beautifully, so I let it go at that.

She gets the day off today, so we'll see if she remembers it on Wednesday.