I finally got to ride Patches last night. Unfortunately, that beautiful fall-like weather from last week is gone for now, though. She was sweaty when I saddled her up!

We rode for a couple of hours - too bad the days are already getting shorter. Next time I'll have to duck out of the office a few minutes earlier and go straight to the barn.

The ride went well, it's amazing the difference in her! She's still a bit high-strung, but it's a lot more controllable now - she seems to have more confidence in herself and in me and handles my correction much better. We still have a ways to go, and it's going to take a lot of "wet blanket" time, but I can't think of a better way to spend the beautiful fall afternoons that we've got coming.

After riding in the woods and checking out the new road the loggers cut when they butchered our woods (okay, they're not "our" woods - they belong to the government, but we've always felt like they were "ours"), my folks took their horses to the barn to un-tack and I took Patches out in the pasture and did some circles and figure-8s, working on leads and such.

She really didn't want to leave the barn area, but didn't give me a lot of trouble about it. I put her to work weaving the fence posts that we still haven't taken down after Joey and I pulled down all of the old wire last spring. Hey, it gives me a good training exercise!

So, she still doesn't like her left lead. I finally got her to catch it right about the same time the marking tape I had tied to my saddle came loose and unrolled behind us! I guess that just messed our groove up, because she never got it again out there - just kept counter-cantering on her right lead to the left. In my experience, when they won't pick up any other cues, they usually just get tired of that feeling and fix it eventually. Maybe I didn't give it long enough. it was dark by then.

She does side-pass quite well now. Just a touch of the spur to either side and away she goes! And she's got quite a reverse on her now, too! And a pretty nice "whoa" - but I want to work on that some more and get her to get down on the backend a bit more.

I had her weave the posts on the way back to the barn to keep her mind off of where she was heading. She's working really well off of leg cues.

Once we got to the paddock at the barn, I worked her on the left lead again. She finally got it an we did two circles and quit. And I also learned that she can side-pass at a canter if she thinks it'll get her to the barn quicker. That was a really odd feeling!

Going to skip riding today and plan on tomorrow. I'm hoping for clear skies and at least a little moonlight ride since it's a full moon. That's if I can convince one or both of my parents to stay out with me an extra hour. They didn't sound too excited about it yesterday. I guess when you're retired, there's no reason to do anything at night when you've got all day to do it..

More later...