It was Supposed to be a Boring Ride

It was Supposed to be a Boring Ride

The other day, I wanted to ride Cole.  The river was too high to cross, Starry had thrown a shoe, Ellen was working and unfortunately, Bella was lame.  What was I to do?

The last thing I planned to do was ride in the arena.  That was out of the question.  The hill is still not fixed.  The mud is horrible and there are so many stones.  It isn't worth it to go up and down multiple times and wear out my horse shoes.

It looked like I was going to be riding on the loop in the back of the property.  It isn't the most exciting ride when you are by yourself.

When I got to the barn, there were a bunch of horses loose in the outdoor arena.  It is right by the loop.  If the horses are quiet, that isn't a problem.  These horses were running all around.  I could wait and ride the loop, or I could go down the hill, after all.

I decided on the hill.  We traversed the mud and went to the bottom.  The last section on the bottom is not muddy or stony, and we often trot there.  I decided to trot back and forth.  It only takes about 20 seconds to get to the end.  Once again, this isn't that exciting.

It was the first time Cole had been on trail in a week, though.  Between my torn retina and then rain every day--raising the river, we just couldn't get out on the trail.  When we did ride, we rode the loop.

When I got to the bottom of the hill and asked Cole to trot, he launched into a canter.  Well, that told me how his mood was!  At the end, I asked him to stop, turn on the haunches, click, treat and walk back.  We did this a few times until he settled down.  Then, we trotted both ways.  He was still energetic, so it was fun.  Sometimes when we do this, his heart just isn't in it.  This time, he was genuinely enthusiastic.

At one point, I realized that I kept doing my turn on the haunches in the same direction.  As I was trotting, I decided to move him over to the other side of the trail to set us up to turn the other way.  Instead of just moving over, he did a leg yield!  I was so pleased with him. 

Leg yielding is something I have struggled with him from the beginning.  Cole is such an over achiever, that when I taught him to leg yield, he quickly morphed it into a side pass.  He has a wonderful side pass at a walk.  When I ask him to leg yield at a trot, he tries to side pass, and it just doesn't work.  I ended up putting all my attention to shoulder in, instead.  It is a more useful exercise.

We do practice a leg yield at a walk when I ride the loop.  When we come around the bend and face towards home, he used to want to hurry on home.  I took his forward energy and asked for some sideways--and I get a leg yield.  I click him for it most of the time.  It never transferred into the arena, though.

So, when I got a decent, but sloppy, leg yield at a trot--this was a big moment.  I decided to work on it.  Of course, I clicked him when he did well.

We practiced to the left, and we practiced to the right.  I threw in some good halts, a canter and he even gave me his show trot a few times.  He was all excited because we were doing tricks!  Cole loves tricks!  We still did turn on the haunches whenever we turned around.  By the time I was done, he would side pass one way, go straight for a few steps and then side pass the other way before I would click him.  We had fun.  Before I knew it a half hour went by, and we rode up the hill and home.

I thought it would be a boring ride, but we both had a lot of fun.