Five workouts, one post!

I have been lax in writing these posts of late.  Sarah and I have had five sessions since the last post; the first was on Wednesday, 3/3.  On this day, we worked on the rail, again emphasizing self-carriage.  Particular attention was paid to Sarah lifting through the withers and working off of her hind quarters.  This work was done in the twisted-wire snaffle bit.  Then, on Saturday, 3/6, the same type of thing was applied using a "colt bit", which is a short-shanked snaffle.  On Sunday, 3/7, a back-through obstacle was assembled.  It had a squared-off zig-zag kind of a shape.  I used it not only as a back-through, but as a trot-through AND as a side-pass obstacle as well.  It is nice when one obstacle can serve so many purposes!  The obstacle was more narrowly-spaced on one of the legs; this made it more difficult, and challenging for both backing and trotting.  For the trot-through, it took four times for Sarah to loosen up her spine enough so as not to hit the poles.  She finally did this, moving her spine in response to my leg on the fourth time through, making the entire s-shaped path without hitting any poles at all, even with the narrower opening at the far end of the obstacle.  What a good girl!
This week, we did another self-carriage workout on Thursday.  I had eaten an apple before coming to the barn; Sarah has the nose of a bloodhound...she could smell that apple on my hand through my glove!  I vowed to bring her a treat on Friday.
On Friday, after I watched the new AQHA video on trail class and getting new ideas for obstacle set-up, Sarah was treated to a fun combination trot-over-serpentine-lope-over walk-through obstacle!  Heavens!  The lope-overs were most fun; the first time over, traveling on the left lead, Sarah rushed the pole and jumped over it.  The second time, she broke stride.  After a quick correction (she knows better!), she followed with three good left lead lope-overs, no hits, no breaks.  Atta girl!  Then, traveling on the right lead, she loped clean over the pole four times in a row.  Wow!  She was really being careful with her feet.  We finished up with the walk-over, which had cones set in the center front and back.  This is meant to be entered on one side of the cone and then exited on the other.  Kind of like a serpentine within a walk-over pole obstacle.  I found that I need to use the longer poles for this, because when using the short poles, moving across the center makes it too easy to exit the obstacle entirely unless there is a longer length of pole to negotiate.  So, next time, for a serpentine-walk-over, I will use the 10-12 foot poles.  So many variations and possibilities for Sarah!  It's like "horsey crossfit".  Afterward, I gave Sarah her promised treat, two large carrots.  Sarah knew about the carrots before I even rode her; she could SMELL them on my clothing!  You cannot get anything past her...
Until next time,
Kirsten


All for now!