As Chrissy develops Cowboy, she is also breaking through her fear thresholds. One of these is the most common for horse owners... trailriding. She's more confident on Rain and she's most concerned over Cowboy's behavior when he encounters something scary. So, I agreed to ride him while she rode Rain so she could see how he manages stimulus on the trail.
I had to ride him English, as Chrissy's in my western for a few more days. I've never ridden him english and he looked so handsome in english tack! My saddle fit him nicely, too. I warmed him up on the ground and got some beautiful trot sideways, among other things. Once mounted, we started with lots of lateral flexion and I even added a treat to the deal when he flexed all the way. He started to magically get very soft with the treats in the picture. He was slightly hesitant to leave, he hasn't been ridden off the property in a lonnng time. However, he got with the program quickly and we headed down the road. The times that he was hesitating, I simply asked him to go backwards until he was soft, then asked him forward again.
The bugs were bad, so I asked Kyle to run us up some bug spray! Dumb mosquitoes. :-)
We didn't have a lot of daylight left, so we only went a couple miles. Cowboy was fine, calm and relaxed and happy to try and snatch the tall grass as we went (the grass is so high it's right at his face!).
Chrissy did well on Rain and I threw her some pointers to help her continue to improve. When we got back, Chrissy untacked Rain, put away some ropes and I threw hay. It's so very nice to have her more self-sufficient now and able to help. We're in a great place and she'll continue to improve rapidly, I'm sure.
It was a nice quiet ride - excellent for helping Chrissy gain confidence.
Should be a great weekend... nice weather and horses to ride. I'll forego a day of riding to get my kids doing something fun, too.
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