Dancer and Keri Play in the Ring

After our beautiful warm day on Monday, temperatures plummeted back down to the too cold and sick of this weather temperatures so everything that melted froze up leaving us with a lot of ice. This means no road travel today only ring work. For something different my chosen mount was WR Winter Dancer. She is a lesson horse but is also on the sales lists only because of her height-she is 15.1 which is not that tall but when you need to have people on either side helping to hold a person in the saddle it is that tall so unfortunately she does not get used as much as she could if she was 14.1 Regardless she is an excellent horse whom over the years we have really gotten to know one another and built a mutual level of respect for each other.

While I was working Dancer my mother actually decided to join me in the ring. She often talks about how she is going to but at the last minute has something else to do when really she gets really bored in the ring. But today turned out very differently with her new Century Club goal she has something to work towards rather than just riding around.

First she and Keri practiced her side passes which Keri actually does very well-sometimes even when it is not asked for. While she was doing that I decided to see if Dancer knew how to side pass or could figure it out. I was impressed that she did very quickly. As a horse that spends most of her time walking or trotting in a circle, a figure 8, playing fun games or working on the lunge line, she does not always get to practice the more refined work.
Keri working on her side pass-she crosses so nicely and seems effortless for her and my mom. I am a bit jealous over how well she does it.

Dancer crossing her hind and getting ready to do it with the front. She is so smart.


My mom then wanted some lessons on teaching Keri how to collect up and use her hind more so we worked on that for quite a while. By the end Keri was going beautifully. Since Dancer was the very first horse I ever showed in the dressage ring a couple of years ago we spent a lot of time working on collection and driving from the hind so she does it very well. Plus confirmation wise she is built really nicely to naturally hold herself in collection.