Those injuries I received in the last post (3 months ago!) turned out to be more painful and slow to heal than I would have imagined, and I was out of the saddle for over 2 months. I'm happy to report that I can now ride again with only minor pain in the posterior. Between the injury, tax season, settling my mother's estate, and a much-needed rainy spell, Dublin and Cowboy have been lounging around not doing much. But most of those issues are in the past and it's time to get down to business.
I'm still in my Parelli coaching program with Julia Ryman Bell, and my assignment for the next month is to keep a log of my successes with Dublin, and this seems like the ideal platform for that! So you will be seeing more frequent posts going forward.
Some causes for celebration now that Dublin is back at work is that he did not back-slide very far during his time off. He is also getting much more responsive to leg pressure and a bit more respectful of my space. We still have some work to do there!
My assignment for the last month was to get Dublin to the point where we could film a Parelli Level 2 On-Line audition. Tasks we needed to capture on film were all 7 games (Friendly, Porcupine, Driving, Yo-Yo, Circling, Sideways, Squeeze), at a walk and trot, use 2 barrels for obstacles, do a Figure 8, trot-to-backup, and leg massage. We accomplished it all and got it on video! I could submit the video to Parelli and get him officially assessed, but I'm happy just knowing we did it.
For the month coming up, we need to work on a Level 2 Freestyle (riding) audition. We need to work on patterns (Cloverleaf, Follow-The-Rail, Question Box) and see if we can get him to do this in a relaxed fashion, on a loose rein, with a bare minimum of correction. When he relaxes and blows out, we should stop! That indicates he "gets it". Also we need to work on sideways, backing and indirect/direct rein. I need to do some brushing up! Sideways and backwards are tough for the Thoroughbred--he likes forward a lot!
We also will be starting Liberty work. We've already done some of that so we have a start. Cowboy loves Liberty, Dublin not so much. For a horse that can be sulky when given direction, he really doesn't like having no physical connection to his leader! This will be a real confidence-builder for him.
Also time to start back on trailer loading and riding. I did get a new truck a few weeks ago and it's just about past its break-in period, so we can start on that shortly.
More to follow as we progress!
No comments:
Post a Comment