Saturday!!

Today I worked with my friend Riley's horse Rickie (Riley is the one who owned Navajo after me). First I rounpenned him and he did great. He followed almost immediately and the neat thing then was that we went outside to walk around the house and he followed me the whole way around the house without a lead rope or anything. I was quite impressed. We stopped and started a few times too :) So after I worked him like that I wanted to ride him but I wanted him to have a little of a break so I cleaned up my horse's piles and such. Once I was finished with that I went and got Rickie's hackamore and put the stirrups on him. He is having this bad habit lately for some reason of not wanting anything done with his head or reins (and we have tried a bit and now the hackamore and he does best so far in the hackamore). Nor is he willing to canter nicely if you tell him to do certain things. So first I got him to walk around the house a bit. We had a few fights at first (him not wanting to go and such but that wasn't hard to work thru). The hardest thing was getting him to canter nicely for me. At first he wanted nothing to do with it. But I did get him to canter straight for me so I praised him for that. Then the hard part came, getting him to canter and then asking him to turn (not sharp or anything..just change directions slightly) while cantering. We got to the point that I could canter him in a nice circle to the right but to the left we got no where. I worked a bit with him at the walk turning to the left and then right before I quit I cantered him to the right. He did great so I hopped off him right there and praised him and put him away. I have in mind what I want to do with him now but it might take some time and doing. I plan to work with him this next week so if you don't hear much of my horses that is why :)

Anyway once I finished with Ricky I went over to Shasta and Mateo. I was just going to work with Mateo but that isn't what happened. Guess today was the day for horses to act up. Shasta decided that I wasn't allowed to be anywhere near Mateo and while she was at it she ran me over and stepped on my foot. I don't usually get very cross but if a horse decides to harn a human being just because their baby is near by that just doesn't happen. So I put Mateo in with Daisy and Freedom and I roundpenned Shasta right there in her corral (it is big enough and actually nice to do it in there). Anyway she followed me and then decided oh wait my baby who is over there is more important so she ran off. So I lunged her some more and we did that a few times till she thought that I was the most important thing in her world at the moment. Now don't get me wrong I like a protective mom and there is nothing wrong with that but I do have a problem with a mare that lacks respect for me. She always respected me before and she is fine without Mateo around but as soon as Mateo is around forget me. Anyway I put Mateo back in with her after she figured out I am more important than anything else. I went and played with Freedom a bit and then I went back in with Shasta and Mateo and Shasta let me go up to Mateo without any problem. I did the same thing tonight again before I left and little problem. So we shall see if this sticks now. Before I had put Mateo back with Shasta I worked with him on leading and he did really well with that. We even went outside the corral and he did awesome. So proud of how far both babies have come!

Well Old Heritage Day was going up at Fairmount Homes (it is something to raise money for some of the old people whose finances have run out since they are living there). So I left Freedom behind and rode Daisy up there. Sharon had her horses up there doing driving and I drove Bean a few times. Then after a while I rode back with Sarah who was on Misty. Later then after everyone came back I took Daisy and Freedom along with everyone on a ride. Freedom did well and Daisy did awesome. :) She keeps getting better and better. That was pretty much my day. :) It was full and I had issues but I feel like I was able to walk away today feeling like all the stuff with each horse was resolved ;) Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!