Fun At Wendy's Ranch! (Roscoe: Day 70)

DAY 70: The weather has brought a fair amount of rain and snow to our little part of the world so training time has been very limited this week. We did get to spend the day at a friend’s ranch who is also a member of the Nor-Cal Downunder Brumbies doing what we call a spur of the moment ride. We had two “guests” as well. We all started off in the round pen and work on speed control and good body position. It was nice to have feedback in order to refine our techniques. Roscoe will be dong more loping in the days to come and refining his round pen work as we refine ours. Then we all headed to the arena to work on groundwork. Roscoe was worked by our friend Angela on Lunging for Respect 1 and 2 and several forms of Backing. We did some Sending through the pool noodle obstacle and over a teeter-totter (he was not sure about walking on said teeter-totter but he would jump over it just fine). Progress was made during the review and Roscoe actually worked up a little sweat! Then we moved to saddle work. I put Roscoe through his paces with Follow the Fence at the trot (we did lots of trotting), riding through the pool noodle obstacle, around the pedestals and doing lots of direction changes, flexing and circles. We even had one of the longest canters since we started this journey! It was pretty nice. Once I felt like Roscoe was using the thinking side of his brain I dismounted and gave lots of rubs and cookies. We then put Angela up on Roscoe and she did lots of walking, direction changes and circles. She had a decent seat but rides a bit tense. Still the two did well together. Roscoe is a patient fellow and forgive his rider quite a bit.

We broke for lunch (pizza) and gave the horses a break for about an hour.

After lunch we did some more ground work to ensure all the equines were in the game and then we saddled up. I did some checks with Roscoe and then gave Angela’s husband Sean a lead line lesson. We worked on his seat, balance and cues. Once he felt confident we let him ride “solo” while I was on the ground. When Roscoe’s fit would get a little sticky I would catch his eye and walk away so he would follow. At one point I jogged away to get more room between us and Roscoe jogged after me (mush to Sean’s surprise). Both did really well and seemed relaxed by the end of the ride.

I got back on to do a final check and end on some wins…got some nice gait transitions, quicker responses and really nice stops from the faster gaits.

Everyone was tired when we ended the session but the day was amazing! We hope to do it again soon!