Monday, July 6, 2009

07/03/09 Solo Time With Ransom

Got up early Friday morning, and got a busy early start to the day. Got plenty of housework done, chores like cleaning & laundry out of the way.

Wandered to town a while, got a few errands run, connected with R for lunch, and headed back to the house.

Afternoon ride with Ransom went well. He was compliant, but sluggish. This confirmed Jen's suggestion that we needed to try my little spurs on him.

Got in some solid test work, changing some of the directions to keep him from building a pattern and antici-pating the transitions. Took my basic three-breaks, and offered Ransom up some ice cubes as a treat. He loves them! Whatta ham! Crunched them up, slobbered ice water everywhere, tongue-flapping happy!

Had a blast at canter. I was obviously quite relaxed, because I got some good solid deep-seated canter all the way 'round the arena both directions. Heading right, I lost a stirrup, so I kicked the other one free, and laughed my tail off sitting with driving seat & inside leg on telling him "Keep going, buddy.. don't stop on me now.. gotta get back.. to.... A... There! Now you can trot. Good Boy!"

A ride of laughs, and good time, something he and I both need more of. As the show approaches, we're both very serious, and we need less serious, more silly. =)

We rode together for about 45 minutes.

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