Kasane now officially knows how to trot. 🙂 She picked up the cue immediately. We worked briefly in the round pend and then in the big ring. She was good for two times when I asked her to trot. On the third time, I asked her to steer and it confused her a little. (Too soon for that.) So we turned around, walked a little, and then asked her to trot again towards the back of the ring. She could see the people back by the mobile home and some deer in the field. She wasn’t happy with me: she stiffened her neck and her entire body and tossed her head. Not sure if it was distraction or her just being tired of me bouncing (I was sitting her trot). So I slowed her to a walk and we headed in a new direction back towards the long side towards the barn. I tried asking her to give to pressure on the halter while walking, but I don’t think it was clear. (Probably just confused her further.) Chris suggested doing some one rein stops both ways, which we did. She was stiff. One direction she actually bit my boot. After a little bit of coming around and asking her to give to pressure at a whoa, and she did it beautifully. She gave me a really nice walk one time around, so I got off after that. We’ll work on trot and the other stuff. I might have been asking a little too much this time.
Kasane is apparently very ticklish on her sides. While I rode, I repeated some things that spooked her on the trail (taking my feet out of the stirrups and then putting them back in). She definitely doesn’t like stuff brushing her sides. She is very sensitive and doesn’t like my legs brushing her. I use light leg pressure any ways, but anything extra gets a flick of her ear and a swish of the tail. So we need to work on that.
It’s so easy to forget how much she doesn’t know. For most of the things I’ve asked her to do, she’s very quick and does it immediately (some times better than a horse with a lot more training). She’s very calm but she has a spit fire under there.
Overall I think we did okay. We’ll ease into trotting in the big ring and we’ll get there. Asking her to trot in the big ring on the first day she’s ever been asked to trot in the ring was a bit much. We’ll get there. More time to do that tomorrow with this nice weather.
I did introduce her to the blue barrel. It got kicked all over the ring, rolled around, pounded on, pushed over, etc. As much noise as I could make with it I did. She followed after the barrel and snorted, sniffed it, and eventually tried to bite it.
So I think it was a good ride and a good session. We have a long way to go…
