getting her ready

This winter we'll be sending Cierra to our trainers, to start under saddle. While my hubby is more then capable of training her himself, we prefer to give her the best education we can - and send her up to Iron Horse. It's hard for us to work the horses in the winter anyways. To prepare, Brad has been spending more time working with her in hand. Between the two of them, I'm not sure who is enjoying it more? It may be Cierra, she is more then ready to go to work. Lately she's been racing to be the first one to the gate, and leaving the boys in the dust - wow, she is so fast!

Brad has increased the frequency, and made the sessions a little longer. The two of them have taken walks away from the rest of us, we've been working with her on standing tied longer for grooming and trailering, continue working on giving to resistance...

backing

...and recently increased what is being asked of her when lunging. Here they are doing the usual lunge...

spending time with Cierra

Last weekend Brad set up a single pole on one side of the arena, and a barrel on the other with enough room to pass between it and the railing. She wasn't sure how to maneuver the pole at first. She got walking over them, but when asked at a trot of course she jumped the pole. It didn't take long for her to realize she should trot over them, and jumping something 4" off the ground is overkill...

over the pole

after the pole

...they worked over to passing between the barrel and the railing, it was a no brainer...

close to the barrel

I must admit I wish my hubby would let me work with her more, but she is afterall his horse. Someday I hope to get/start another young one, but not until we have our own place. I love having a young horse as part of our family, and seeing them develop into good trustworthy horses. Until then, Koda continues to give me plenty of fun things to work on.

I have a short video to share, but Blogger won't load it. I'll post it later, if it let's me.

I like watching the bond between Brad & Cierra, and capturing it - or at least trying to. In another session, she was asked to move out for the first time. After some fast zooming around the human pole, she settled into a nice forward lope. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me. Cierra also got her wolf teeth pulled this week. Brad make a make-shift stall in the walk in shelter for her to finish waking up, and the little turd untied the rope and got out on her own! We sure will miss this funny loving girl when she's at school, but until then it'll be fun watching her progress!