Monday, June 13, 2011

Forward motion

Today I saddled up Sage after dinner and did a small amount of lunging in the round pen to get her to feel the concept of forward motion. By "small amount," I mean a few circles at a trot each direction. Of course, this took tying a plastic bag to the end of my lunge whip, but boy she is so pretty when she's being responsive!

I am trying to teach her voice commands for lunging, which is how my other horses are trained. I think she's getting the hang of it. This also helps when I get on, because I can use several aids (legs, seat, and voice) to teach her to move forward.

I hopped on her after we did a bit of quiet ground work, and guess what?! She actually moves forward now when I squeeze!! Our training session with Patrick paid off. We only really go in one direction, but it doesn't matter because it's forward, and that's exactly what we want!

No comments:

Post a Comment