My confidence is high and I didn’t need the halter with lead role. Nothing is on her head. She has a neck rope.
Today, Fancy stopped inside the 4 markers which we call a Question Box. What do you want Mom? Do you want to go through the box? Do you want to stop. We go through the box with a straight center line or in circles. We could do straight, figure eights or half arena circles. Yesterday I asked her to stop going thru the circle in the straight center line markers, but she pretended not to recognize my body signal or pulling on the rope.
By golly, today she recognized my signal to stop at a walk, the gaits and the canter. Yee Haw! I might pass the Level 4 test soon!
I decided to do canter to stop transitions on the wall. I decided on 10 steps at a canter and stop. My goal was for Fancy to canter immediately when asked and halt after 10 strides. We occasionally got the immediate canter but the transition to a halt took about half of the arena (way more than 10 strides to stop) We cantered everywhere…. into her favorite corner, nearly into running over my riding partner, Sharon on Sonny. I stopped counting the strides and concentrated on staying alive. She was not bolting. She had her brain. Her body wanted to keep cantering except for when she ran into a corner. She did stop in the corner and I commenced more canter to stop attempts. I tried again…and again and again.
Nope. We failed at 10 strides canter to stop. This is not on the Level 4 Free Style test, but I thought it was good training for my stop signal. Nope. I decided our next session was going to be with bridle. I have just a smatter more control over her body.
I was not scared. I’m in an arena with four solid walls that will not allow bolting across the winter Missouri fields. She was not bolting, she just ignored my body language and the neck rope. Fancy is a GO Horse. I love a Go Horse. They are not boring!
We will ride another day in the arena!