Zena's Training

The only somewhat blurry picture I posted on here was the one of hubby riding. The others weren't blurry, so I think your eyes and glasses are fine.

It does look kind of funny with hubby sitting in the "round pen bleachers".

I'm with you, trotting is enough for me right now too. I haven't loped a horse in a very long time. My confidence is way up from where it was, but I'm still not ready to lope. Hopefully someday I'll get there again! In my younger days (back when I apparently thought I was indestructible ) I used to gallop my horse bareback and loved every second of it!  Now a trot is just right. 

Poor Gerald!  That had to be frustrating showing up a day early.    I hope he found something fun to do with his extra time in OK.

I had the trainer come out today to help me with some fine-tuning, both for Zena and for me.  For example, last year I had Zena pivoting on the forehand beautifully, but this year I just can't get her to do it at all (she just wants to walk in circles) and I didn't know how to work on that issue.  It was great spending time with the trainer again, and our session was a lot of fun, but I haven't ridden or worked with Zena for several weeks (Zena was doing so well, and I was missing riding Sis, so I had planned on starting to alternate between Zena and Sis each week, and I had gotten to ride Sis, but before I could ride Zena again we had a couple weeks of lousy weather ), so she was being a little difficult at times today (head tossing and stomping). 

The trainer gave Zena a little refresher on pivoting, both from the ground and in the saddle, and then she taught me how to ask for it from the ground, and gave me a refresher on asking for it from the saddle.  By the time we were done for the day we were pivoting again, although we are going to need a lot of practice to get back to where we were with it at the end of last year.  Here is a series of pictures of us trying to pivot on the forehand (she kept trying to walk out of it, but we'll get there).

Notice Zena's forelock - yep, head tossing!  (That is not something she normally does, so it was a little frustrating to have her acting up like that today.)

The trainer also taught us something new today - sidepassing!  She said she thought it was something she worked on with Zena last year, but if she did, I don't remember it.  Sidepassing is something I've always wanted to learn how to do, so she taught us both, including asking for it from the ground and in the saddle.  I'll tell you what, the times she did it right while I was in the saddle, it was amazing!  I felt like we were gliding!!    Here is a series of pictures of Zena and I learning to sidepass.

I'm so excited to continue to work with Zena, especially now that we have these 2 new skills to try to master together!

Time for a long overdue update on Zena's training.   It's been almost 2 full years since the trainer finished working with Zena.  I have continued to work with Zena myself since then, but I must admit that I haven't worked with her as much this year as I did last year.  (I've been a little lazy this year.  When I've wanted to ride, I've just wanted to ride and not spend so much time training, so I've ridden Sis).  Anyway, Zena continues to get better and better, but we've been continuing to do all of our riding in the round pen as that's where I've always felt safest with her (the one time the trainer had me ride Zena outside the round pen near the end of her training in 2013, I could feel Zena picking up speed the moment we stepped out of the gate and it made me nervous - Zena's got a huge motor and she knows how to use it!).

I rode Zena this past Friday and then again on Sunday.  Friday she was a bit feisty at times, but nothing I couldn't handle.  It was very windy out that day as we had a storm rolling in, so I'm sure that had a lot to do with it.  Sunday Zena was much calmer, so I finally decided that I was sick of just riding her in the round pen all the time (I'm sure she's pretty sick of it, too) and I got up the nerve to ride her out into the pasture!  Once we got out there I felt like such an idiot for waiting so long to do it, because she was an angel!  The only thing she did was try to break into a trot as we were walking up the hill, but I asked her to slow back down to a walk and she did, no problem.  I can't believe it took me almost 2 years to get her out of the round pen, but I'm so glad I finally did it!   Here are a few pictures from our very exciting day.

I've done tons of tarp work with Zena, but it's all been from the ground.  This was the first time I'd ever tried riding her with the tarp draped over her butt.  Even though it was flapping and crinkling in the breeze, she never even flinched.

Here we go heading out into the pasture together for the first time!

She stayed nice and relaxed throughout our entire ride (and after 2 years in the round pen, we rode around in the pasture for a while!)

I feel like Sunday's ride really boosted my confidence.  I'm so happy with my Zena girl.  All our hard work has definitely paid off big time!