Annie....11/27/10

11/27/10

Day 4 was a long one for Annie, rode her (gulp) in a clinic given by my dad (Natural Remuda Equine Learning Center) for about 5 hours total.  Thought it might be pretty exciting because she had never been outside the round pen, but it went really well.  Started in the round pen just to be sure there was no bucking and moved on to the arena within a few minutes.

Spent most of the time just getting her to unstick her feet.  Lean back, smile and squeeze with my cheeks (I don't mean the ones on my face).  Dad helped her along with a few timely, encouraging slaps with a stick and she finally freed up and started walking out.  After moving out was going pretty well, we started turning her into and away from the fence.  She really needed to be back on her hind end in order to complete the turns.  She really did well with this, but we really had to work getting her to break at the poll.  She is so fearful that I was going to hurt her face that she would raise her head in the air to get away from the pressure.  Finally got her to break at the poll, semi-consistently and things got better from there.  She has a tendency to attack a little when she is pressured and Dad played with her on the ground for a little while to help me with that.

All in all, it was a good 5 hours.  With the time like it is (dark at 5:30-6) most of Annie's rides will be long ones on the weekend.  So posts will be on the weekends.