Question of the Day

Does this saddle make me look fat??

I think my dad put it nicely: this saddle on Colton looks like a postage stamp, lol. Colton has been pretty good lately. I really do love training horses, it's great to see how quickly he's learning and when he finally "gets" something.

Today was the first time his stubborn streak showed. He decided that he no longer wants to listen when I ask him to halt or back up, although he was doing just fine recently. After telling him "Fine, you don't want to halt? Then you can trot until you decide that you do." That worked out quite well and afterwards he was soft and responsive whenever I asked for a halt or step backward. He's getting more and more comfortable trotting, we even cantered a full circle in both directions today. He's starting to get what leg means and steering a little better, though today we ventured out of the round pen and I imagine we looked quite drunken wandering in a squiggly line across the pasture. Overall I'm pleased with how he's doing! I almost don't want to sell him because I think he's going to make a quite nice dressage and trail horse, and possibly do a little bit of low level jumping.

Here's what we need to work more on:

• Bathing
• Being able to "send" him places: through gates, into the trailer, etc. He gets a little panicked when you ask him to do stuff by himself
• Introduce some poles to trot over and small cavalettis
• Work on ponying
• Pony on the trails, then ride on the trails
• Ride with the bit, instead of in the halter
• More comfortable at the canter
• Steering at the trot (and eventually the canter as well)
• Backing more willing
• Giving to the bit (once the halt is more established)
• Work on in hand stuff. His ground manners have increased dramatically, but I want him to be so well behaved that he could go and enter a showmanship class and not make a fool of us!
• And then the final test will be to go to a dressage show and ride intro!