Day 23, More Arena work  

Posted by Enlightened Horsemanship

Now we are working Max fairly seriously in the Arena. His work out consists of 10 minutes of free running and warm up. We let him run around as much as he wants and kick up his heels for a full 10 minutes. By the way, all times are strictly enforced on a timer so there is no guess work. Then we start working the exercises that I think he needs the most. These consist of a lot of transitions from the rein back to the walk and the trot. Then we work on Hindquarter yielding and Forehand yielding.


In the Video below, you can see Max being worked on a walk to Rein Back exercise. In this exercise, Max's rein back is fairly rough but he does it. The point of the exercise is to walk forward 5 strides,(A stride is 2 steps) and then rein back 2 steps. This he does with a bit of resistance.


In this next video below, you can see Max being worked on the Walk to Trot Transistion. His transition is fairly rough and there is considerable use of the rein in order to make it happen. This is not acceptable and will need a lot of improvement before we consider it good.

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Day 22. Max working in the Arena  

Posted by Enlightened Horsemanship

Today, Max was worked pretty hard. To start with, I let him loose in the Arena and he ran around for 10 minutes. I timed it to make sure. He had a lot of energy and really ran around hard. Afterwards I mounted him with a saddle and bridle and started working him on the following exercises:


1. Rein Back to Walk Transitions

2. Rein Back to Trot Transitions

3. Walk to Trot Transitions

4. Hindquarter Yielding Figure of Eights

5. Forehand Yielding Figure of Eights

In the video below you can see me working on trying to get him to perform a simple walk to stop to rein back transition. It is very difficult for him. He is resistant, crooked, and not collected. This tells me that if he were going fast, he would be extremely difficult to stop.

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Day 21, July 4th Day Off  

Posted by Enlightened Horsemanship

Today is the 4th of July and therefore Max will get his day off today instead of tomorrow. Tomorrow he will get worked like always and will continue his training in earnest.

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