Sue – How Do You Do -Still trying to Canter

The round pen has fairly deep sandy footing.  That's why Sue canters in there so well. Sue doesn't canter in the arena with me riding.  Oh maybe a step or two now and then when I have a pole for her to lift up her front end. When I ride her, she is still nervous when I put pressure on her to go faster.  If we are trotting and I put pressure on her to go faster, we disintegrate.  (Sue does a lot of disintegrating.) Occasionally I'll get a couple of canter…

Sue – How Do You Do with Doggies?

Dogs are nothing to worry about. We are used to dogs. I rode Sue today at home. We went further than we ever have before.  We were accompanied by our nice Lena dog. She's a senior German Shepherd.  Sue and I were doing our ground games when I noticed that Lena was trying to herd Sue.  Lena has never done that before.  I yelled at her and she slunk away. Sue and I were at the furtherest away from home than we ever have been. Lena was right besides us, circulating amoung…

Sue – How Do You Do “Tuck and Spurt”?

Tuck and Spurt is a new term I came up with tonight to describe something Sue does. When she gets nervous or fearful, she tenses, her rear end tucks in and she spurts forward.  This isn't a good thing.  It would be a good thing if we were in a starting gate ready to chase down a cow.  As we are riding along and I ask her to go forward, I might "overask" and she'll tense all up...tuck and spurt.  You might imagine this just destroys the transition that I am asking for. …

Sue – How Do You DO at Focus?

I don't know whether or not you've noticed this, but ususally the title pertains to either Sue or I.  Today, it really is my title. We were in a nice sized 3 hour clinic this morning at Pine Dell.  There were 9 wonderful horses in the clinic.  Sue is getting better with her claustrophobia right along with my fear termination. But, we still have a problem going between horses while we are trying to stay at a consistent gait on the wall.  While we are doing that, other horses are…

Sue – the How You DID IT Horse!

The Horse Show Goal My goals were: to ride from the horse trailer to the arena to ride in the show classes, occasionally doing what the judge called for to ride out of the arena to the trailer  We got big huge virtual blue ribbons and met everyone of these goals I thanked everyone that came, clapped and cheered. I discovered that smiling when people clap is a great way to release tension. I know Sue enjoyed the clapping. Sue knew it was her night. The arena was ours!  We have a nice group…

Sue – How Do You Do-in the Show Arena?

Show day minus one.  We practiced today.  Jenny rode Nova  in the arena with us.  We were pulled by an amazing force of gravity to follow Nova around the arena. Boy Howdy - It will be great in the show arena.  Nova, Diva (Sue's own daughter) and Velvet ..all of them or at least one of them will be in every show class we enter. Way cool I have show blanket.  I have ribbons.  I have a Western shirt for the fox trotter western class.  I have a shirt for…