Oct 15 - Bareback Outside

For class today we played out in the outdoor arena the entire time. Started off with groundwork and tried Dawn's way of having Chester yield his hindquarters. It works so much better than how I was orginally doing it.

Chester was being very stubborn today and kept trying to eat the grass that was all over the floor of the arena. I really used the Yo-Yo game to get him to not constantly eat and ignore me. I decided to try how he would do with side-stepping. He would back up a lot instead of just moving his shoulder but we did succeed a couple of times, which made me happy to know that something was working.

I was then finally able to ride Chester bareback without someone leading me on the lead rope. We had to have the rope loose though and toss it over his head whenever we wanted to turn a different direction.

He would fight a little bit when we would turn around but he not always. I really wanted to try trotting a little bit bareback, and he picked up my energy really well. A lot better than I had anticipated. He listens when I ask him to stop and he doesn't fight me doing that at all. He also does amazing at backing up with very little pressure.

Overall it was a great experience, I was able to see how he would react to being outside, also how he would was while riding him. He is very difficult to turn but he does a great job reading my energy and that makes me extremely happy.