MUSTANG GENTLING




This blog is about the gentling of wild Mustangs and their stages of training.

































Sunday, February 8, 2009

Conditioning weekend

It was a condititioning weekend for all three of us. Princess, Dino and me. I took Dino and Princess to our favorite beach. I saddled Princess up and took her out on the trail by herself for the first time. The first twenty minutes, she could not walk down the trail in a straight path, but that is typical of young horses. Then she got into her grove, it was like she had been a trail horse all of her life. She was just going to see what was around the next corner. The ride took us on a trail that I had not been on before. It was for a more experienced horse than her. It was narrow and steep with lots of trees and root wads, one half of the trail was a drop off to water on one side. She handled it all very good. Even when we passed a mule and another horse on the trail with hardly room to pass, she did so with out any problems. From there we headed to the ocean. Up over the dunes she was a little hesitant. Unlike the first time with Dino it was a little much for her, with all the people and dogs, She handled it, we did a few circles and then went back up into the dunes again. We were going along the trail in a dark place, when we came upon two yellow labs running towards us. She stopped and just waited for them to come right up to her. They turned around and she followed them. I think I was more worried than she was. We started trotting and cantering on the trial. Crossing water were some places it was quite deep. We cantered on some of the trails in the tree areas were we had a lot of turns to make. She was just loping right along. She was a joy to ride. After two and a half hours it was time for her to rest and it was Dino's turn.
Dino started out doing his favorite thing. Cantering in the waves in knee deep water. Then we did some drift wood jumping. Then over the dunes into the wooded trails. Were we did the cantering and water crossings. The water I said was deep for Princess, wasn't that deep for Dino. Like with Princess we did a lot of slow cantering through the trails with lots of transitions. I worked him for two and a half hours and headed home.
Today we worked on just getting her to relax in our arena at the walk trot and canter.
We worked on transitions, and a lot on different trail coarse items. I just gave her an all around work out.
I also worked Dino, and worked on jumping. After riding Princess and then riding Dino it felt like I was riding a warm blood. It felt like he grew. Not only up, but out.
I told Lisa that after this weekend, I almost like riding Princess better than Dino.

3 comments:

froglander said...

Sounds like you had a great weekend! But, but, where are the pictures?
:)

Tracey said...

Yeah...pictures!!!

Isn't it funny how we anticipate and these little greenies of ours just stand like nothing is wrong? I think you'll end up with little miss Princess... :>

Debra Trean said...

delightful blog to read... nothing like the wild mustang... I am hoping to start my baby this spring...