March 2020
March 29, 2020
What a fun week! I did more jumping than normal and more bareback riding than normal.
I realized on Monday that Jasper gets a little excited when going on trail rides with a large group of people. So all week we rode with a large group to cure him of his three-year old excitement. By the end of the week, he realized it's no big deal.
Spirit began to learn collection, but not before we put a spring in her step because she was getting lazy. After two days of fast rollbacks, I determined that if any mustang could make a cutting horse, it's her. She is so catty and light on her feet.
Honey and Indy are also continuing to refine their collection skills and shoulder control.
This week Dally got to do a little bit of everything! Went on trail rides, jumped (or attempted to jump) bareback, worked on lead departures, slow spins, stops, neck reining, and she roped her first live calf! And to top the week off, everybody got their teeth done. Last week of March in the books. Bring on April and warmer weather.
March 22, 2020
What a week! This corona virus junk has really messed with everybody's normal routine. No one has it that I know personally, but all this chaos is nuts! Luckily it doesn't affect getting horses rode!
Spirit worked a lot on her turns and really getting confidence in them. In the next few weeks she will begin learning collection.
Honey continues to work on collection, along with going on fun trail rides to help her decompress and relax from all the mental work of collection.
After a long road of turns with Jasper, he was finally able to wrap his mind around them and will actually neck rein a little bit. He can be so big and awkward sometimes, but deep down, I love the big black and white. Now we are working on getting long and low at the lope. He is so much more comfortable to ride when he is collected.
I'm looking forward to the weeks to come and hoping that things will start to settle back into normal.
March 15, 2020
It was a busy week, but all of my horses made good progress. Spirit got some more miles out in the hills and started working on her side pass.
Indy is progressing quickly and did very well during his first week of collection. I am really looking forward to taking him to rodeos this summer!
Jasper continued to work on his turns and staying in the direction he was told to go. Because he can be a little stubborn I felt that it would be a good thing for him to work on his turns an extra week and really have them down, before asking him to do something new. However I did swing a rope off of him just for fun.
My little Honey bee started to learn collection, and we will continue to teach that lesson throughout the next couple of weeks.
The more time I spend on Dally the more excited I get about her potential. She is so athletic and talented, before my fiance leaves for Nevada I am going to have him put baby sliders on her so I can start working on sliding stops! I'm also hoping to get someone to take photos and video during the week while I train! Fun stuff is always happening here!
March 7, 2020
This week was so nice everybody got a bath! I think the warmest day got up to 68 degrees!
Everybody also got to work on making their turns crisper. Even the broke horses like Dally and Jasper who have had more training, can benefit from a little refresher every once and a while.
Spirit figured out how to turn, stop, back, and do forehand turns this week. She is very smart, but with brains comes energy. So next week we will be going on longer trail rides to burn some of that energy off.
Indy will start to learn collection next week and Dally will be introduced to the basics of flying lead changes.