Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone has a safe, beautiful holiday! 

[Almost] Wordless Wednesday

Unrelated to Sonny and parelli, this is Sheldon (a.k.a. The Big Bang :)).

He is a dutch/thoroughbred cross that I am currently riding. He is an LBE and so much fun! I adore him!!

Liberty Video

I don't think I have ever videoed us playing at liberty before, so here goes:

 

I do realize that it looks slightly slow motion. Oh, my LBI. Maybe next time we will look a little more...alive ;).

Lessons in Liberty

I love liberty and so does Sonny. But lately we have been a little....stuck. Since I moved to the new barn I haven't done much liberty. We didn't have fencing for a while, the outdoor is ginormous, and the indoor usually has someone else in it. I don't want to risk Sonny running away while sometime is trying to ride so I normally stick to online or freestyle.

The past week or so I have been really trying to get back into the swing of things. That is when this happened. He got away from me which isn't a big deal, but he was doing it so much I got frustrated. I put him back online and started over and the next time we played he got away from me again, and again, and again. 

So finally two nights ago I was playing online and thought that maybe I would just take the rope off and see what happened. He was fabulous! We played a little stick to me, sideways, driving, and ran through the games. Circling game at liberty has been our archnemesis. That's usually when things go haywire. So that night I tried to break down the problem. I have been circling him close to the wall (about 10/15ish feet away) so that I could use that to help me keep him on a circle rather making it more difficult on myself and circling him in the middle. Last night I really focused on what he was telling me. When I started the circle, just at the walk he was fine, but when he got to the wall he turned and burned. DUH. Lightbulb. How is my squeeze game? I am not sure why it just occurred to me to check that before my circling game but better late than never. Rather than chasing after him trying to play the catching game, like I usually do, I just stood where I was and waited. He walked right back to me. Huh, how interesting! The game wasn't so fun when I didn't feed into it.

So I moved on to squeeze game. He didn't have the confidence to go through where I was when I asked for the circle. I backed up again and he went right through. I did it a few more times and tightened the gap and his squeezes were beautiful. So then I asked for the circle again. Voila! Perfect walk circle at liberty :). I was so happy I ended there. After a few weeks of trying with no success all it took was for me to listen to what my horse was telling me.

So last night I played at liberty again, just for the fun of it. Which I think is a really important concept for me to grasp. A lot of times I go out to play at liberty with an intention of accomplishing something, or anything. But, he feeds off that mind set and it does that the fun out of it for him. So tonight I just took the halter off and played around. We started with some zone 3 driving which was going so well I played with zone 4 and 5. I know, I know I barely have any experience with Z4&5 driving online, so I shouldn't be doing it at liberty but what the heck. It went so well and I think we both actually really enjoyed it. He followed the rail with me in zone 4 and 5 which I think was interested because we have never played follow the rail online just freestyle.

He was showing great interest in putting effort into things and acting like he was really enjoying it. So I asked for another walk circle and it was perfect! So I asked for a trot circle and it was really great, too! He got a little bigger than I expected, but he a) was so focused on me he didn't care that all of the other horses were getting grain except him b) maintained gait c) maintained direction and d) had a beautiful bend in his body. It was excellent! I am definitely one to quit while I am ahead, but because if my play frame of mind I just started walking to see what would happen. He did a traveling trot circle at liberty to where he was circling me perfectly in the middle of the arena. Wow! That blew my mind! I stopped there and played some more games, but I wanted to end on a really good circling game. I asked for the trot circle again and when he got in front of me he started to come in, but I senesced a direction change in his mind so in order to encourage his own ideas I asked for the direction change. My first one at liberty on a circle in the middle of the arena and it was perfect! The best part was after he changed direction, he maintained a perfect close range trot circle around me. He is so fabulous! He definitely knows how to put a huge smile on my face!

I tried to get a picture, but the indoor arena lights, plus night time, plus close range trot circles do not equal good pictures. You can't even see him in half of them. Maybe I will have someone get a video soon? 

Finally: Some Play Time!

I finally got to play with Sonny today. I think it has been at least two weeks since the last time we did anything. I could definitely tell, but I don't think he minded.

It's been really muddy lately but we still were able to use the outdoor. We splashed through the puddles had a good time making a mess. I got on bareback and bridleless, and actually savvystringless because it was covered in wet sand from playing online. His warm up was pretty good online and he was being super responsive when I was on him. I didn't feel the need to push for anything and there wasn't anything specific I wanted to work on so we headed out to the big open field.

I think that was my first time riding him outside in the field without at least a savvy string around his neck. He was perfect. We cantered and trotted and did figure 8's and quick stops. Anything I wanted it was there.

My favorite thing from today was after my ride. Out in the field I got off and walked him back to the arena to get my things I left there. All the way back to the arena we had to go through grass. I played spot to spot, which I normally do. But the weird thing was: he didn't put up a fight. Every time I walked off he walked with me, no questions asked. Which is so strange for my food obsessed LBI. I am pretty sure he has never stopped eating to walk with me without there being any motivation on my part. Normally I have to use my carrot stick (or leadrope when I am not at liberty). S it completely blew my mind that he just stopped eating and walked with me. It was so relaxing to not have to worry about asking him to walk with me; he just did it. It was definitely the most enjoyable walk we have ever had together :).

Galloping through the field bareback and halterless :).

Wordless Wednesday

DONE

I am done with school for the year! It feels so great. Semesters were long and drawn out as opposed to quarters, but overall I do think it went faster than usual. I am so glad that it is over with.

Now hopefully onto horsey time. Looks like someone needs a little TLC....

Poor guy was put on the backburner all week...

Pretty Impressive

First of all, if you aren't my facebook friend you have to watch this. This is Take 1 of my liberty jumping from the other day.

As funny as it is and as many times as I have laughed uncontrollably over it, there really is something interesting about it.

Stop the video at 0:16. Then watch Sonny closely for the next two or three seconds. If you notice at about 0:17/0:18, he looks over at me. The second my leg his the jump, he is already flexing his body towards me. Wether he heard/saw/felt me, he knew something was going to happen and was already thinking of turning and facing me while he was still in the air. I think that is so cool! I may be wrong, but I think this shows just how connected to me he is.

Unfortunately my phone only takes 20 still shots in a row. I would have love to have caught some of what happened after what you can see. He turned around and put his nose to my face. I am not sure if he was checking me out, confused, or just flat out laughing at me. It's fun to think what he might be thinking.

"Oh, you are so embarrassing!"

 "Your squeeze game sucks" 

"Human training is harder than it sounds"

"So THAT is why you need me to jump for you"

What do you think he is saying? 

Tis the Season

If you haven't noticed (unless this is your first time viewing my blog, I really hope you did notice) that I changed the layout to a Christmas theme. I am having a really hard time getting it exactly the way I want it, mostly because I don't think blogger is saving my changes. Grrr. But on that note: if anyone knows someone who designs blogs for fairly cheap (>$100) I would be super interested!

I think it's too late for Christmas photos (how do I always seem to miss it? Procastinator, procrastinator...) so I guess I will settle this year for just decorating his stall. Which is slightly disappointing because no one every sees his stall. I am starting to feel a little scroogey! Yuck!

Although we did get a Christmas tree yesterday! Pretty sure we bought the biggest one they had ;).  We didn't buy enough lights because we weren't expecting to get a mammoth so it isn't finished, but it's a start!

A two man kind of tree...

I have finals this week, so there probably won't be much horsey time. But after that is Christmas break and hopefully lots of horsey time!