Good ride.

Well I had selection for jury duty today, and it ended around noon so I snuck off to the barn for the afternoon! I helped do the rest of the stalls, then me and C started tacking up horses for D to ride we managed to do 6 horses in just over 2 hours! Only 3 of them were horses that were being ridden, the other 3 are still getting used to the saddle.

At the end, I saddled up Lucas and lunged him, and D got on and warmed him up a bit then I got on. I rode in his western saddle, and my western spurs and Lucas didnt pull his 'stop and stamp' routine! We did some trot circles, then worked on changing direction across the diagional. We both find the change of direction from the right rein to the left very difficult. Wouldnt you know it but my right leg (the one that I broke a couple of years ago and have very significatly less controle over) is the outside leg and it has a hard time assisting in the changing of the bend!

We did a bunch of that and mixing up 20 m circles in when he was anticipating, or bracing. We had a little break, then I did some small circles to get him to follow the bit more than bracing against it. Then we did somthing I truly didnt think was going to work. We took a portion of the ring (about 20m) and did figure 8's though it. I was so busy keeping his sholders up, and rounding his belly I didnt have time to worry about weather or not Lucas or I could do it, or that he might spook, we just did it. I mean he is 16.3 hands and neither of us are at our best, or very flexable, but I didnt have time to think about anything but the next turn and it was great! Remember the 5 seconds I was talking about in the last post? I had my 5 minutes :)

So I need to stop thinking, and keep it intresting for Lucas. I only need to think 'go' and 'show direction'. I get so caught up in perfecting small things Im missing the bigger picture.