Monday, March 23, 2009

Thursday's Training Review

On Thursday afternoon, I took Sangria out and did a quick review of the exercises that we did the day before. I went into her paddock, haltered her, pulled her out and groomed her. She's easy to halter now and doesn't evade me at all. As I tied her up to the trailer, she was excellent, albeit a tad nervous going through the processes without a horse next to her for confidence.

Sangria loves to be groomed - she is not protective of her space or body at all. Whenever I scratch or curry her itchy spots, she really starts to get into it. Her lip and head start wiggling and in some cases, she has started to reciprocate with mutual grooming - which I'm not sure I want to encourage! But it's adorable that she's so interactive!

After I had brushed her down, I decided to saddle her up before walking her down the road to the local round pen. She doesn't have any fear of the saddle (or anything new I introduce her to!), but she is extremely inquisitive and curious. This quality makes it very easy to work with her!

She gave me no issues or resistance as I saddled her for the second time. She has never bucked, humped her back or had a problem with the girth! She almost acts as though she's been saddled many times in the past!

Once she was saddled, we headed to the round pen where we revisited the same things we had done the day before. She was much better than the first day and seemed to have retained everything she'd learned previously. I've worked with horses in the past that you have to start from scratch each day in order to move forward with them. However, Sangria always seems to be right at the same place we ended the time before. I love that about her!

Before we went into the round pen, I decided to take Sangria into the arena and check out the new environment. She hadn't been in the arena yet, which had many new curious items - like jump standards, a mounting block and lots of poles. We worked on some ground work exercises, including trotting in hand, halting and even lunging. I got warm with our exercises and ended up removing my jacket, which I proceeded to flag her with.

As I tossed it up on her neck, she walked around with me, exploring the arena. A couple times, she put her nose down to sniff something, when the jacket slid down her neck, over her head and fell to the ground. The first time this happened, she lurched backwards and snorted, but then quickly came forward to smell my jacket. We did this a few times until she became bored with it.



We then headed to the round pen where I removed her halter and did some free lunging exercises with her before re-introducing the mounting exercises. Sangria was really good and had no problem with me stepping into the stirrup multiple times. At one point, she spooked at a bicycle coming down the road behind her while I was leaning over her back. However, she only scooted around with me on top of her. I still didn't swing my leg over, but I think she's almost ready for that.

We also did some giving exercises with her rope. She very quickly caught on to following the lead rope's pressure as she swung her hindquarters away from me and spun around. Good girl!



Sangria and I headed home after we were done with our exercises. Once we got home, I worked on asking her to pick up her feet. She was really good with her front feet. I'm hopeful that in another week or two, I will be able to have our farrier out to trim her. Her feet are pretty long currently!


Sangria has done very well with all of the work we've done so far. I hope to get her first ride on her in the next couple days.

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