Selena Ride 23; Wizard Session 94: Nibble, Nibble…

Wednesday, 9/9/09

Poor little JR’s ankles are covered with itchy bites. He got them on our trail walk on Monday. I hosed his legs, scrubbed them with Betadine, and dried them off.

Wizard has them as well. I took him for a short trail walk tonight (light was fading fast!!!) for about 3 miles and did the Betadine scrub routine for him as well.

Another great ride on Selena! We had the deck stacked against us, since it was a chilly, windy night and most of the horses were in the barn, but we worked right through it! She was just a little tense and snorty at the very beginning of the ride, so I went right into our work on transitions and she responded nicely. We did walk-halt-walk work, some big circles, and used the traffic cones as guides. Then we graduated to walk-trot-walk transitions. She is working off my seat for downward transitions really nicely. During our last ride, I felt Selena round and maintain contact with the bit a few times- tonight, I felt it several more times. Yippee! She did it in both directions and did not back off when I held the contact with the reins. We trotted a ground pole about 4 times during the ride- she was a little wobbly over it so I kept my leg on her.

We’ve had a few big steps forward with our progress. Time for me to sketch up some new ride plans :^)