Making Friends

I had another good ride on Miss Jetta today. I figured out finally that she's not that in love with the treats I've been giving her (I switched because the feed store was out of Berry Goods) which is why she hasn't been coming to my call from the pasture and I've been having to trek all the way out to the far corner of the pasture through the mud. Today, I got smart and pulled out one of the special occasion treats, Squeezy buns, and give the wrapper a crackle. Aha! That got her attention and she walked all the way over to me without me having to get my feet muddy :) That was a success!

We used dressage tack today and after lunging I got on. She was much better than yesterday, but was trying to be a bit of a freight train in the trot, but a lot of half halts got some really nice work out of her. We just stuck with doing an easy ride. Our canter was even good today - no rushing or almost-four-beating. And then, the icing on the cake, we got not one, but three square, straight halts down the centerline! This has been a major struggle recently. You can just see the wheels turning in Jetta's brain as you try to go straight: "Should I leg yeild right? Or maybe left? Oh how about a circle? No? A halt? Um, I guess..." And we do a very sloppy halt three feet off the centerline. But today she was focused and we managed to make a straight line and halt neatly. No falling on the forehand, save for once and after quickly backing her up, she didn't make that mistake again. Yay!

In other news, a new boarder, R, arrived at the barn. She actually boarded at the same barn that I just moved from, and though I had never talked to her before really, though I did recognize her, we sat and chatted for a few minutes and have decided to be trail buddies. Yay :) This is the first person I've really talked to at this barn because usually I either don't see anyone else, or there is one girl that I see occasionally but she just kind of stares at me and doesn't respond to my smiles or hellos. Awkward...

Apparently R has already surveyed the forest trails that I've heard about and GoogleMapped them so she knows where to go. Her horse is barefoot as well and she said that the gravel is pretty large (the nasty kind that even shod horses have trouble with) so she was planning on getting boots before venturing out. I'm excited to have someone to ride with! She seems super nice, she has a sweet little paint named Bella that reminds me (coloring wise) of my horse Patch that was a training project of mine. I think Bella and Jetta are going to get along well, they were making happy, curious faces at each other trying to say hi without getting in trouble throughout our conversation, lol.

Other than that, I'm looking forward to another riding lesson with TS on the 10th. I have to remember to actually ride my horse during the lesson, because I have the issue of just freezing up and after today, I know I need to remember to put some half halts in there and make her listen to my leg! Hopefully, TS will see some improvement because I really have been working on our "homework".