Well today I gave the DOR a lesson about riding with others. We have been working on our own or taking lessons by ourselves. It is time that she realizes that we can go out with other horses in the arena. The DOR is worried about what I will do if another horse misbehaves, hey I have an image to maintain so I am not going to do a darn thing if some other horse is being a gommer. I am worried about what the DOR will do, but I am willing to give it a try and trust her not to be silly. I took her to the arena with three other horses. We had a good time and I made some new friends. I had her work some more on one rein stops with the bit, tight turns, and trotting. The other thing I am trying to teach her is to look ahead to where she wants to go, she is bad about just looking at the ground between my ears. What I have been doing is walking just a short way and stopping, after all if she is looking only three feet in front of me that must be all the further she wants to go. So I will only walk as far as she has been looking. She looks far ahead that is where I will go, if she looks at a rock two feet in front of me I will go to the rock and stop to visit. It only took her a few repeats of this behavior for her to keep her head up and eyes looking further ahead. While we were working the other horses were doing some ground work or were being ridden around. I impressed the DOR with my ability to stay calm while carrot sticks, flags, and ends of ropes were being waved around. I even surprised her by calmly walking by the turquoise flag, it usually makes me snort, several times as it was propped on a barrel. We had a bunch of fun! Soon I will be able to take her for a short ride out of the arena.
Enjoy your day and don't forget to hug your DOR
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