The day was sunny and bright. It was warmer outside in the sun than in the
\nindoor arena, so we were outside all day long.
\nBut it was cold in the morning, so we started out in the heated lounge.
\nWe had a knot tying class…we learned 4 knots.<\/p>\n
We got our circulation started with balancing games. Jenny had purchased a
\nround board with a bump in the middle. The object is to stand on it without
\nthe edges of the board touching the floor. Then we had to stand on a
\nskateboard looking board with a rollar underneath it. For this task, we got
\nto have a partner stand in front of us and give us their arms to hang on to.<\/p>\n
Then we played human games where one of us was a horse and the other was the human. Jenny led the “humans” out of hearing range and gave them their
\n“tasks”. My human felt sorry for me and told me what to do. ha ha I figure
\nshe was a little upset when I became the human and didn’t tell her what to
\ndo. My challenge was to play the falling rock game and the reverse at a trot
\ngame.<\/p>\n
Next, we progressed to online with the 22′ rope. We had to stand on the rope
\nwith two feet until the horse’s head was as far down as the horse felt
\ncomfortable. I did get Velvet’s head down to where I stepped on the lead
\nsnap. When the horse’s head was down, we were to play the friendly game with the carrot stick and string…plus hit the ground with the string.<\/p>\n
While everyone else trotted and then walked on the 22′ line, my challenge was for Velvet not to break gait at a canter for 5 circles.<\/p>\n
Our next challenge was reversing at a trot, but Velvet and I got to reverse
\nat a canter, hence doing flying lead changes. Wonderfully, Velvet is
\nimproving her flying lead changes at her “problem” direction. She doesn’t
\nget the lead change in back, but she now can change leads in back at the
\ncanter. This has taken a YEAR!<\/p>\n
Our next challenge was to ride with the Cherokee Bridle. I think Velvet was
\nthe only horse that has ever experienced this before. But, it didn’t take
\nlong before we were all trotting around with the string being carried in the
\nmouth by all the horses…it took 10 minutes! Velvet and I haven’t done this
\nfor almost a year, so it was cool to see her calm down and hold the string in
\nher mouth in a short amount of time.<\/p>\n
After lunch we rode with bridles. We had have our halters on our horse.
\nThen we were required to bridle our horse from our knees and then take off
\nthe halter…still on our knees. Thank goodness I know how to do this now.
\nThat ground was hard and I didn’t want to stay down there very long. I
\nremember when taking the halter off when underneath the bridle was a complete total mystery. I think it took me 3 years to figure it out. I think Velvet figured it out long before I did, and just took over.<\/p>\n
We started out doing rollbacks at a walk and trot.<\/p>\n
Then we played follow the leader. The challenge is to stay no farther or
\ncloser than a horse length. Those that break the horse length commandment
\ngenerally get to run flying leads (without the horse!) after the lesson is
\nover. Luckily, Jenny forgot to “punish” the ones who broke the horse length
\ncommandment.<\/p>\n
Then we did real flying lead changes one at a time. Velvet and I didn’t get
\na single one. I now realize that I have to be really “UP” for this and ride
\nvery aggresively. Velvet and I were just too laid back by the late
\nafternoon. Then two people at a time did flying lead changes. We had logs
\nlaid out and did the lead changes in a figure eight pattern.<\/p>\n
After we were done\u00a0with this, we all dismounted, unsaddled and put on our
\nbareback pads. Jenny demonstrated how to help someone mount. She
\ndemonstrated this several times. Then the auditors got to help the rest of
\nthe class mount. The auditors got quite a workout. They had to move
\nbarrels, logs and help with mounting.<\/p>\n
We walked and then trotted. There were two riders who had never rode
\nbareback before. They were quite nervous about it, but gradually became
\nrelaxed enough to ride at a trot. My challenge was not to use my reins. One
\nof the auditors asked me why I couldn’t use my reins and I explained that it
\nwas a level 3 task to ride bareback and bridleless. So he said, why don’t
\nyou just take off the bridle then. I surprised him and did…but I put the
\nsavvy string around Velvet’s neck. I’m almost ready to ride with no backup
\n(string or carrot stick)…I’m right on the edge. However, I’m no where near
\nbalanced enough to ride and change directions without the bareback pad.<\/p>\n
HAY! We did a lot! There were only 5 people who rode in the morning session and we gained one for the afternoon session.<\/p>\n
We all had a wonderful day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The day was sunny and bright. It was warmer outside in the sun than in the indoor arena, so we were outside all day long. But it was cold in the morning, so we started out in the heated lounge. We had a knot tying class…we learned 4 knots. We got our circulation started with balancing games. Jenny had purchased a round board with a bump in the middle. The object is to stand on it without the edges of the board touching the floor. Then we had to stand…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[10,4,8,120],"class_list":["post-537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-velvet","tag-jennifer-vaught","tag-missouri-fox-trotter","tag-parelli","tag-velvet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions\/540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}