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!