First, a little background about Frankie and I.  I've been raising Frankie since she was 11 months old.  She is a PMU baby out of Canada with absolutely no human contact until she was loaded on the truck for her trip to be with me.  Everything she knows, good and bad, came from me. She is 4 years old (5 in may of 2008) now, and was backed briefly 4 times for about 10 minutes at a time just this past summer.

I used to have quarter horses back when I was in my 20s.  Not many, 6 or so, but then my husband died, farm had to be sold (I had no income at that time and he had no life insurance), so me and my 4 children made do as best we could but that didn't allow for horses in my life.  Now, here I am at age 50, my children are grown and I'm a grandmother, and I have my horse,  an Arabian - so very different from quarter horses!  lol  I raised one QH filly from birth to 2 years old and sold her to the hunter/jumper people down the road before she was saddled.  Then came that 20-some years of no horses at all.  Then came Frankie.

I am, at best, an advanced beginner rider.  When in my 20s, go galloping across the field?  No problem.  Now that I'm 50 - YES, PROBLEM!  Maybe I'm crazy, but I so love riding for hours and hours, that I want to do endurance rides.  First I have to get Frankie up to snuff though!  I waited until she was 4 before even getting on her back.  Then I felt sorry for her because I was close to 200 pounds and she's only 900 lbs and 14.2 hands.  So then I lost 45 pounds.....and we finally look good together!  lol 

And now for my shining moment in the sun!!!! I have to post about our latest and greatest accomplishment on Sunday, 10/28/07 - we rode for a WHOLE HOUR !!!! I had a helper. His name was Tony (just met him out at the barn today). He and my friend, Renee, were out in the paddock just riding around. The paddock is about the size of a large outdoor arena. Anyway, Frankie (my filly) and I were standing at the rails, she eating grass and me watching Renee ride a horse she was considering buying. They were having such fun and out of the blue Tony asks me if I'd like to come in and ride my girl. I said no....wasn't planning on riding her as it's been months and I wanted to mainly just work on reintroducing the saddle and getting her comfortable with it again. He was so nice and so insistent that I took her in anyway. He held her lead rope, held the off side stirrup and up I go! My Frankie was SOOOOOOO GOOD with me on her back! We walked all over that paddock. We did back ups, turns on the hindquarters, riding the rails - it was like she had been under saddle for ages! Tony suggested I try a trot, but you know, I was so excited about just being on her and her doing so well, that my legs were shaking - LITERALLY! So I declined. Besides, it being our first ride in so long, I didn't want her to go into an excitable stage, not just yet. I wanted to BE SURE she understood all my basic cues before adding a new one, especially since we are training bitless. I'm currently just using her rope halter, hooking the reins (scissor snaps) onto the cheek part and lower part of the nosepiece so they stay in place and don't slide all over. Makes for a nice, comfy hackamore type of setup. I'm using big exaggerated rein and leg cues and SHE'S GETTING IT! TOTALLY!

And she was taking care of me too. How do I know that? The horse that Tony was riding decided to sniff her butt and she decided she DID NOT LIKE THAT! So...instead of giving him a hard kick with both hinds to the chest, she barely picked both hind feet up enough to threaten and that combined with the squeal did the trick. She made sure I didn't go anywhere! It felt no worse than a mild glitch in stride. Normally she'd kick that boy to Hades! Take out some skin and hair if at all possible! 

Then Tony and Renee decide to go outside of the paddock and onto the trails. I was hesitant, but figured there's no time like the present (especially since their horses were so nice and calm) to try her outside the box. We actually rode about a tenth of a mile down the trail and back and I had no problems with her....NONE! WHAT A GOOD GIRL! I'm on cloud 9 and all is right with the world!  And if my legs weren't so sore (note to self - Frankie isn't the only one needing to get in shape), I'd be out there today.  Guess it will have to wait until Wednesday.  I need to get a photo of us together too.  :-)