Cole learns to side pass

Cole is going to make one awesome cow pony. I know, he was going to make an awesome dressage horse, but yesterday, when I was practicing leg yield at a walk, I gave him leg pressure when he was at a stand still, and he did a very perfect side pass to the right. We practiced it, and he did it over and over. That caught me by surprise. He didn’t do it to the left, but we haven’t been as advanced going to the left all along. That has been our challenging direction.


After a half hour arena ride, we went down the hill. Remember how much trouble I have been having? Well, he was perfect on the way down. He started to get prancy on the way up, so I decided that I would lead so my nervousness wouldn’t transfer to him. I think I may have discovered something when he tries to rush off—at least it worked last night. When he pranced or tried to trot, I dropped the reins by his mouth, held the other end and stopped. He didn’t go far—he stopped on his own before he even got to the end of the reins. He didn’t want to leave me. I didn’t click him for it, but went back to his head and restarted. Instead of getting all wound up, he ended up going up the hill pretty good. I did stop him like this about 5 times—whenever he got too fast.

The river was too high to cross, and I rode Cruiser on the hill 3 times—doing a fair amount of trotting on the flat parts. He seemed to have fun.