Sunday, May 04, 2008

Lena gets a lesson from Janice


Steve and I are going away for two weeks (!) in June, so I asked Janice if she would be willing to ride Lena some while we're gone. She said she would, and came out to give Lena a spin in the arena today.

Lena was a little surprised at being asked to collect a little more than normal - okay, a lot more - and not to go directly from the trotting part of the workout into the loping part of the workout. "What? Isn't loping what comes next?" Janice even asked me if we always worked Lena out in that order and then made Lena walk until it was Janice's decision to lope. Hm. Actually, watching Janice made me realize our workouts are too predictable and it might be good to mix them up just a little bit more for both horses.

Lena did fine under Janice's capable and patient hands and Steve and I are both firm believers that the more input Lena gets, the better horse she becomes. The same applies to Bar, but I'm not sure anyone but us is crazy enough to ride him or that I'd be comfortable enough to let them in any case. I even struggled with that on our trail ride yesterday. I thought I'd be more relaxed with Steve riding Bar to warm him up, but I sure spent a lot of time worrying about how they were doing.

After she was done, they trotted over towards me and I let Lena "cut" me for just a moment. Love to watch that head come down and those ears go back, even if I have to pretend to be a cow.

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