The Arab Kicks In

Tuesday, Ashley was finally able to ride and I had stolen Michelle. We all tacked up and headed into the field. Dan was spooky right off. He stood better for Michelle to get on, then shied going through the arena opening into the field. He wouldn't go into the grassy lane first and eyed everything down the lane to Grandma's. We went around the edge of the field and he was pretty good, then spooked himself walking over a sprinkler pipe. We went to the edge of the field by the road and Michelle walked him over the pipe several times until he did it without acting terrified. Then we went to go around the block. He spooked at everything. Michelle finally decided it wasn't the evening to work on this as she didn't have enough time so we went back and rode home. It took an hour to do all that, so it wasn't a short ride even though we didn't go far.

Ashley and Gypsy didn't have a completely smooth go of it either. Gypsy doesn't like standing very long for mounting. Ashley was taking too long to get on (by her standards) and took off. I had to catch her on Dazzle. I told Ashley she had to make it a swift, smooth movement and just get up there. She was really frustrated by this time as they'd already spent 10 minutes arguing over standing still, but she didn't complain, she just got up there, Gypsy starting to walk off and I told her to discipline her for it. She made her stop and got her foot in the stirrup and all was okay. They did well the rest of the ride. When we got to the gate next to Grandma's Gypsy remembered the training from the session they had a while back and stood next to it while Ashley pushed and pulled the gate. I was quite impressed she had retained it that well. Quite promising.

Dazzle was good the whole time. We were western and she likes that. I let Ashley ride in my Dressage saddle, so that was she and Gypsy's first trip out of the arena in a snaffle and Dressage saddle.