On the Road

This week Steve took Paloma out for a tour of the neighborhood. With help from her friends, she managed just fine. In fact, while her friend Pearl struggled with a muddy creek crossing, Paloma was kicking back and "having a cigarette."

First visit to Camp

I drove to La Grange today to see how Paloma's doing. She is definitely settled into her new life as a ranch horse and seems pretty happy. I helped get all the horses out in the corral, there were 5 people managing 6 or 7 horses, all charging around the outside, getting aired out. Paloma is pretty good at this, she's learning to stay away from trouble and keep in the clear. She has such fun galloping along, she really shows her thoroughbred side. And while the others were puffing away, heaving after their run, she seemed like she wasn't tired at all.
Steve rode her and I followed along on his horse, Gunnar, a nice little palomino who does everything you ask (take note Kona!). Steve showed me how he's working on her yielding, turns, walking out, trotting out and moving into the canter from a big reaching trot. She has shown him her sticky places, where she gets herself worked up and he told me how he's dealing with her, which is to manage her steps and to insist that she go forward. And over time he's giving her a little less time to deliberate about what she wants to do, instead he's expecting her to do as she's asked. It's just what she needs. and while he's riding her on a loose rein now, he'll soon start asking her for more softness and start to take a feel. but not until she gets the going forward part.
Steve said she does all her ground work and round pen work really well, so her learning needs to be under saddle. He also ground drives her, which also helps her with bit acceptance. He'll be taking her out on trail and exposing her to everything in the neighborhood, charging dogs, big tractors, sheep, etc. etc. Again, it's exactly what she needs to boost her confidence .

Paloma seems to really like Steve, and he seems to like her a lot. Paloma is turned out daily with Pearl, a little black arab mare. when Paloma comes home she's going to go into a pasture situation, to help keep her happy. I'm really looking forward to my next visit in a couple of weeks when I'll ride her...

Breakthrough??!!

Steve sent more pictures and reports from Camp.
He said that Paloma got a "C" in tying, she rarely stands still and pulled back several times. So he is working on that with a little exercise in which she gets moved over by the rope. She usually pulls back so they let go the rope on her head, and start over. Eventually she started to figure it out. I guess she got good enough to get tied to the tree for lunch - a PRIVILEGE only for horses who get gold stars on their tying!















And she and Pearl get to run! Steve says Paloma will never catch Pearl.... she must be really fast to outrun Paloma!




And last, but not at all least, Steve introduced her to the Silly Bridge. It's a teeter totter bridge.















Steve said that the Silly Bridge is also known as the Breakthrough Bridge, and once they get over it a lot of things start to come pretty quickly. I can't wait to see what happens now that she's gotten over the Breakthrough Bridge!! Steve says she's very proud of herself when she's on the bridge.

Kona's Progress

It happened! Kona got her flyng changes last night - I've been working with her for MONTHS, since our last lesson with Ellen back in May, and she finally got it! We also worked on it from the hunter/jumper approach with Noni. Although she's been getting closer and closer, it was really hard for her and she couldn't get her feet organized. She got mad, she went sideways, she'd stomp her feet and shake her head. I had pretty much concluded she couldn't do it. But last night, she jumped into the change when I wasn't really asking for it, and voila! And we did it again tonight, with a bit of help from Susan on how to set her up and to use the whip to tap as I ask for the change. Kona tried to buck, which she can't do, fortunately! and then she didn't need the tapping to tell her to switch. Now we can work on fine tuning it, making her wait for me to tell her when to do the change.
Kona always approaches these things with a "don't tell me what to do , I know how" kind of attitude. Wonder where she got that? ha ha.... but now she's figured it out and it will be so fun to use the changes in our jumping and of course, to advance to 3rd level and beyond. ALSO, she has such a wonderful trot now, with an amazing collected balanced trot and a big medium trot.
Piaffe and passage, here we come!

Driving Miss Paloma

Steve reported that he drove her around the ranch, to see what her cadence and patterns are. At first, she didn't like the ropes around her legs, and she didn't do bridges....






















And she didn't like water much, nor being in a gully....

But eventually, she figured it out and voila! She now does bridges!

Steve said he is setting her up so that she has to figure things out and he's giving her the time to think about what to do. I bet she really never had that time or choice before. Sending her to Steve is the smartest thing I ever did for my girl.