Recap of this week.

     Goodness, I have been super busy this week!  So I'm devoting this post to catching up on things.

~June 16~

     I took Marsan for a short ride down the road tonight.  She was pretty calm tonight so it made everything a lot easier, although she was rather domiant.  With that being said picking up two of her feet was a little difficult, so we had to play some respect games until she was more willing.  She didn't really want the saddle in z3*  so we did some squeeze game until she put the saddle in z3* by herself, which was awesome.  She felt really good to me so I did a little driving game and some circles than I mounted up.  We mostly worked on transitions and her listening to my body.  It went really well, she actually made several different transitions with only my body.  The big thing that I learned was that sometimes fun is more important than being picky about every little detail.  In other words, it's good to prioritize.  I would have liked to work with her more on her saddling issue, but that wasn't why I came out and since she didn't have an extreme reaction due to the saddle I felt like I could move on. 

~June 17~

     We put the horses out on pasture today and that of course went just fine.  It was the coming in that was difficult as always LOL.  Marsy and Cherroke were grazing near the barn and the others where farther down the road.  I thought I could catch Marsy and ride her down to where the others were, then pony Gingy back.  I guess I set my sights a little to high and I was rather direct-line too.  When I approached Marsan she moseyed away and I followed her, silly me!  I think it would of been okay if I had matched her energy, but I had more intent than she did so it probably felt like I was chasing her.  Anyway her and Cherroke headed for the rest of the herd.  We walked down there and I tried to approach in a nicer, friendlier, manner.  This time she came to me.  Riding back didn't work quite as well as I had hoped, but that's okay.  The lesson I learned from this rather difficult session, was that you need to be flexible on your plan and take the time it takes.

~June 18~

      Tonight we had bible study at our house and all of the kids wandered down to the horses.  Gingy needed a grooming anyway so I invited them all to participate in grooming him at liberty.  He was a perfect gentleman for everyone!  He even let them touch him on his head, which is pretty amazing since he usually doesn't like that.  Even though he was very gentle with all of the kids he did establish bounderies with them as well; such as not letting them yank on his forelock.  The really interesting thing was that there was only one girl out of nine kids that Marsan allowed to approach her.  With the rest she was very shy.  The kids wanted to see what Gingy could do, so we showed them some of our best tricks.  I'm now convinced that Gingy feeds off of attention.  It was like just knowing that all of the kids where watching him inspired him.  He backed into the bucket, lifted his legs when I tapped them, let me toss a hoola-hoop over his head, lead by the tail over a pole, and went sideway to and way from me over the bucket. 
    
     We also had to load Marsan tonight to go with me to my friend's house.  It went pretty well, although Marsan was quite adament about not getting in.  I let her have some time to meander a little bit until she lost interested then I asked more try.  Eventually she got in and backed up by herself, which was her cue last summer for us to shut the gate.  I could tell she was little nervous one everything was closed, but she was really quite calm for doing this for the first time this year.

~June 19~

      We went to the gymkhanas today and Marsan did awesome!  It was a really hot day which always helps with her because it calms her down, but I could still tell a big different from the last time I took her.  She unloaded nicely from the trailer, let me groom her, and saddle her.  I sat on her for awhile just watching the events and that went well.  At first she didn't really want to stand still, so we did some figure eights until she was more relaxed.  After awhile my behind got sore from sitting her with only the bare back pad for so long, so I tied her up for awhile with the hay bag.  Marsan is good about being tied up, but she likes to move around a lot.  I think the funnest part was when I loped her, it kind of happened by accident.  I was riding with a girl who needed to lope her horse because he getting balky and when she took off Marsan wanted to as well.  I felt like she was calm, so I let her go for it.  She went into this really nice balanced lope and I fell right into the rhythm of it.  It was so cool! 

       Hope you enjoyed with summary of our crazy horse week.  I really enjoyed writing it.