Wednesday Night Ride

One more evening ride going up and down the hill to the river. This time, at least I had my boyfriend with me on his horse. I like the company. Cruiser and Starry are good friends, too.


I rode Cole in the arena, first. I am working on maintaining the pretty trot. I started with counting strides. I found out that he lasts strong about 9 strides. I then anticipated the 10th stride—mostly by not doing anything to disrupt him. When he got to 10 strides, I clicked, and then I built up from there. We were doing about 25 strides on a circle in the end. Mostly, I would click him before he lost it. We then tried going straight and then bending and then going straight again. That is tougher for us because we are changing our balance. I noticed improvement with that, too. There is so much to work on! We also practiced leg yielding at a walk and side passing. When I asked for a leg yield at a trot, he immediately went to a walk, since that is what he though he was supposed to do.

We wound up our ride by riding down the hill. He did fine until we got to the bottom, and he saw the pair of Canadian geese. He wanted to just stare at them. At the very moment I asked him to walk, one of them stretched out his wings and startled Cole. He jumped and spun to run up the hill. I kept him spinning until we were back where we started, and then he was fine—as if it never happened. We walked to the end of the trail, and when I turned him around, I dismounted and led him up the hill. Each time, he gets better. At the barn, we walked up and down the driveway a few times before putting him back in his stall.