Red Letter Day

This morning I had the opportunity to get up early and work with the horses. I went out around 8, fed the horses their grain, and threw them each one flake of hay. As they ate I groomed Charlotte and Woody very well, getting tons of hair off them as I worked. Once they were both clean and ready, I began tacking up Charlotte. I used my saddle on her (my Wintec Wide; so I wouldn't have to bother with changing stirrup length on Mom's saddle), and girthed her loosely, all at Liberty. I got her bridle and she accepted it willingly, this at Liberty, too. I grabbed my helmet, tightened the girth, and headed to the other side of the field. I hopped on via round pen fence, and took her down to the waterer before we started. We then went outside the fence for the rest of our ride.
I started the ride by having her get a nice working walk, and getting her soft and thinking through her turns. Once I got that going really nicely I played around with a lot of walk-trot-walk transitions to get her trot smoother and not so bracy and quick.
She felt really good to me, so I took her down the hill to the pond, and ended up riding all the way around the pond. The majority of our ride around the pond was at the trot, which went well and the consistency of the trotting allowed her to find a nice rhythmic, forward, soft trot.
The only area we had to work through a bit was in the swampy area. She got a little worried about going through all the wet grass and mud, but after I kept asking her, she finally went through it nicely.
We then returned up the hill, I parked her on the concrete pad by the barn, and I dismounted. She did REALLY nicely today and I was very pleased with her.

On to Woody. After I untacked, brushed, and treated Charlotte, I began tacking up Woody. He, too, was at Liberty, but didn't mind a bit as I saddled him up. I did, however, put a halter on him when I was bridling him, just so if I needed to work through the bridle with him, I could. I did have to patiently work through the bridling for about 5 minutes, but once he relaxed a bit, he was totally fine with it. Again, I grabbed my helmet and led my pony out the gate to the concrete pad.
He stood completely still as I mounted, however once I was on he began to have some ADD issues. He was all over the place, listening to and watching everything, but I immediately asked him to weave in between a line of pine trees and he settled right down.
I then went over to the round pen, opened the gate from his back, and went in. I worked on two things in here: getting him to let go of thinking about the gate and whats beyond it; and also getting his walk-trot transitions smoother and getting him in tune with me for the trot-walk transitions. I was persistent and firm when asking him to stay with me, and I did a LOT of troooot now walk! transitions to get the downward transition when I asked. Eventually, after about 15 minutes, he had let go of the gate thought and was really starting to listen to my seat when going from a trot to walk. I stopped by trotting toward the open gate, then stopping in my body and him coming gently to a stop. I let him sit for a bit, then went back out the gate, closing it behind me.
We then proceeded to go down to the pond playground, where I asked him to touch logs, put his two front feet on a clump of moss, dismount and lead him at a trot through a maze of trees, hook his reins on a hook and pick up all four feet, and remount. He was really in tune with me, and everytime I got off and got back on, he was completely ok with it.
I spent a bit of time asking him to go out of his comfort zone and get closer to the fishing boat he was afraid of, and we made some good progress there. I walked him on a loose rein down the dam, and then played with getting a soft feel and keeping it around some turns in a circle.
We played around with a couple of other things, then headed back to the pasture. I knew he would be thirsty because he hadn't had a drink that morning, so I rode him over to the waterer and to offer him a drink. However, he wouldn't drink, but rather flung his head around playing with his bit. I remembered he doesn't like drinking with the bit in his mouth, so I dismounted, took his bridle off, and remounted. I had to reins around his neck so that if I were to pull back pressure would be applied to his chest, but he did not have anything on his head. Once he was finished drinking I gathered the reins, rocked my body back and over to the left (asking for a forehand turn) and applied pressure to the right side of his neck via rein. He executed the turn perfectly, and headed up toward the barn. On the way up I asked him to stop by stopping my body and pulling gently on the reins, and he stopped and backed up. It was so cool to see how in tune we were and that he was doing all of this without a bridle on his head!
Woody and I had a fantastic day of riding out, having fun, and in the end riding without a bridle!
~Eden