Well, as I promised, Capri had yesterday off to relax in the field and do some thinking, or whatever horses do when they have nothing else to do. The photo above is my view of Capri and the arena from my dining room. I also promised that I would hop back on Capri tonight, and as you can see, I did just that.
Capri was a very good girl again, and we worked on basic forward motion. Stepping straight forward is a tough thing for a horse to learn when they're concentrating on how to stay balanced under the rider's weight, so we go forward by first going to the left or right a little bit. Call it moving the forequarters, or picking up the shoulder, or moving the rib cage over, but it boils down to taking the weight off the front end and transferring it to the hindquarters. Once the horse does that, she can pick up and go.
I like to take things slow, so all we did was walk, turn, and walk some more. Twice, Capri stopped at the mounting block to let me know she thought she was done, and each time I asked her to keep going. She had no objection to that, so I guess she just thought it wouldn't hurt to ask. A sensible green horse is a lot of fun to ride, because each time we ride them they learn something new. It's my favorite part of training, because the milestones really start to pile up. Once they learn all of the basics, we can ask for the more advanced stuff, and that is fun too, but in a different way. Capri is a good student; she listens well and gives everything she can, and she feels really safe to be on. Just the way I like it!
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