All By Myself?

He is the best at ass shots.

On Thursday, I found myself swinging my leg over my little guy even though there was no one else on the barn property. I used to ride Cuna by myself all the time, including long trail rides with no set end time and no contact person who knew where we were going.

It's different with Courage, though. He's a good boy, but he's really green and I just don't trust him with my life the way I did Cuna.

I decided that it was fine. I mean, I was wearing a helmet and we were just doing flatwork. What could go wrong?

Also Courage. He laughs at that too.

FYI, the universe laughs when you ask that kind of question. We very much had an "establishing alpha" kind of a day in which Courage created some new evasions and nearly dumped me. I stayed on, got mad, and rode through it, but it got me thinking.

How far is too far? I suppose it's one thing if you're a pro on your own property and you have to ride alone or not work, but as an adult ammy who has no vested financial interest in getting my horse more or less trained, what is the deciding factor when it comes to riding without someone else on the property? I don't even mean a trainer or eyes-on-the-ground necessarily--just someone to dial 911 in case it comes up.

So I'm curious. What makes the difference for you? What makes you ride or play another day?

Well, Hopefully That's Over

I stuck to my plan for this morning. Izzy ran for almost 10 minutes, then I tacked her up quickly. I left off her splint boots and just brushed her off quickly instead of doing a thorough job and making her spotless.

We did so much better. She didn't rear on the lunge. I just put her out there, sent her forward, and as soon as we had walked, trotted, and cantered both ways, we were done. When I got on, we did transitions. Lots of them. I tried to ask for a transition every 5 or 10 steps, so she had to think constantly. At the same time, because we were the only ones in the arena, I got to focus more on my position and aids then on not getting hit by people who should be able to steer. We're still just doing walk/trot stuff, but I think we're getting to a place where cantering won't be unreasonable.

I realized yesterday that the turn on the forehand that Cathy had us work on is actually the prelude to lateral work. Perfect! I need to get Izzy moving off my leg a little bit, so we worked on this too.

All in all, a successful training day.