Confidence.

Today was a good great day with the horses! The sun was shining in our normally cloudy Ohio home this afternoon and it was a perfect day to be at the barn! The horses went out to play in nearly 70 degree weather while Evan and I did barn chores in our t-shirts! Crazy weather for February. After a few hours the threat of rain prompted me to bring the gang indoors. Despite being plucked from her pasture, Rydel stood happily next to me waiting for me to do something with her. So, I decided to try tying her using one of the cross ties near her stall door. This was the first time she had ever been tied since we moved to the new barn and I was worried she would dance around. Much to my surprise, Rydel stood like an angel letting me brush the dirt from her coat and pick her feet! She never put any tension on the cross tie and never tried to turn around even though the door was wide open looking straight into the pasture! Our porcupine game definitely played a huge role in our success today.

Later I decided to take her into the arena and play with a few concepts I wanted to practice in preparation for advancing into level 3. We worked on backing from the tail, leading from the ears (which she is not too fond of), and leading from the savvy string on her front feet. In preparation for liberty we worked on HQ yields that flow into the stick to me game- it was then that I noticed Rydel cannot yield her hind quarters all the way through to look at me with her right eye. She will do it with her left eye no problem but that right eye is really telling of her confidence issues with that side. Something we will definitely be working on in the next few weeks!

Lastly we worked on confidence with the mounting block- one of our biggest road blocks lately. Rydel's sideways to the mounting block is getting almost effortless as she comes to me with only phase one or two prompting. Then I did the usual regimen of friendly game using my stick and my body to get her comfortable with the idea of standing still for mounting. Usually the slightest hint that I'm about to get on will cause her to walk off, but today after swinging my leg up multiple times and lying over her back, she didn't move! After a while I decided she was giving me enough green lights to get on. We had a nice walk around the arena which gave me the chance to play follow the rail and try out the steady rein technique. Rydel did sigh a few times but never fully blew out like I would have liked to see, but after about ten minutes or so I got off. Baby steps today will turn into giant leaps in the future and I am so happy she is finally gaining back some confidence accepting a rider! Just in time for warm weather riding :)