A four horse day!

The weather is gorgeous!  We got a big dump of snow, spent the other day on the tractor clearing the driveway - and today was a horsie day all day!

First I brought Serenade out to continue working with her.  Anastasia has done most of the work with her so far, but I have worked her a few times and I keep thinking something is a bit "off" - she had a major kick to her shoulder as a long weanling (I can't remember if I mentioned this before) anyhow, as a result of this, she has quite a bit of stiffness and she is off balance.  I had the farrier put winter shoes on her and it has made a difference, she is no longer bracing just to stand up on the ice and snow and she is confident on her feet, which of course is required for a riding horse!  So I lunged and worked with her for quite a while and I was pretty pleased with her - she is now wearing side reins on the lunge line and learning to give to the bit somewhat and also learning that bending to the inside is required lol.  Serenade is an absolute darling - she is so gentle and wonderful - we really love her and we are really looking forward to getting her out on the trails with us.

Next I brought out my lovely girl *My New Flame - she had quite a lot of ground work this time last year and then she had her foal last summer so she hasn't actually been started yet.  This year it is time!  She was lovely and soft - I showed her how to lunge, only spent a short time on this lesson today, but she just soaked up the attention - she is a very beautiful horse, the mother of Carrie's *Simon Says - both of them are incredibly nice movers - wait until I get some video of Flame so share!  Flame is also have sister to my deceased mare Amazing Grace (aka Gracie)  Gracie was a piece of my heart and when I got this younger sister to Gracie I named her *My New Flame - it was sort of tongue in cheek, but a couple of years later I lost Gracie suddenly to a severe colic and now Flame seems somewhat aptly named.....
Here is a picture of Flame and Serenade - this was taken not too long ago.

So after Flame I brought Joe out to ride - when a horse gets to this stage of training, they start to show a bit more resistance to some things.  It is like up until now they are saying "well, this is interesting, this if fun - I am enjoying getting out and having all this attention", but after a while, they all seem to start saying "hmmm, this is more than I signed up for!  Maybe I should dig in my heels a bit and try to get out of this work!"  They ALL seem to do this and Joe is no exception - the resistance can be in many forms - they can get a bit spooky, they can try to go too fast, it certainly varies!  In Joe's case, he has become a bit less willing to go forward and so today I sat a bit more firmly on him and used my heels a fair bit more firmly.  He is so sensitive that there was a bit of a risk of doing this that we could have a rodeo, but luckily he just accepted my firmness and moved out as he was supposed to.  We had a great ride and at the end Anastasia showed up to take some pictures of him and I had her get on him for the first time - he was perfect for her and she like riding him!

 Here we are practicing our one rein stop and neck flex - so important to have that to disengage a horse that is going too fast for comfort!

Finally, Anastasia asked if I wanted to go for a ride up the hills - my feet were wet, but it was still nice enough out that I said yes - we only went for about an hour, but it was lovely for sure.  The snow is deep enough to give the horses a good work out and we can mostly walk and enjoy the scenery.  No pictures of our ride, but here is one of me, Tessa and Bijou when we got home.

The weather is supposed to be good again tomorrow so we will be back in the saddle tomorrow as well!
Shelly
http://www.curlystandardplace.com