Another day, Another Ride!

Another day, Another ride:) It is another beautiful day here in Stevens, PA and that means I got to ride again. I am really happy that we are having such wonderful weather and that spring is on the way. That means to me more time spent with Navajo, bathing time :D, and of course we cannot forget riding and training. Ah spring and summer are great times of the year. Actually my two favorite :)

Anyway, enough of remincing and on to the ride. The ground was firmer today and today almost felt like summer. If there would have been no snow and I wouldn't have had to were a jacket you would have thought it was a fine summer evening. Well I rode in the orchard again. It is actually kinda nice having the trees and different obstacles up there that we have to walk around. Good because it makes me focus on what I am doing with my body and where my legs are and what they are saying. Today I mainly worked on leg cues, hand cues and other body cues. I have been doing a lot of thinking lately on how in dressage you try to make your cues to your horse as INVISABLE as possible. So I thought that my stopping cue wasn't invisable enough so I did some reading and found that if you pull in your stomache your horse will feel that and that can become a cue. So what I worked on today was I pulled in my stomache and then pulled back on the reins, said whoa and that meant stop. Eventually I want to get to the point all I have to do is pull in my stomache and maybe pull on the reins a bit. We will see. Anway between that and working on moving his forquarters he did an awesome job. He did the best he ever did yet on moving his forquarters. Really pays of to be repetisious! And hard work and determination DO pay off eventually as I am finding out. We just did a lot of walking, moving his forquarters and stopping. I think it is good to work on the basics and then this summer move on to harder things. Overall it was a wonderful ride.