Saturday, May 14, 2011

Desire & Sheza Go (back) to Lunge School

Of course Desire already knows how to lunge. But she hadn't been worked in months. Today was the day! Cool with a breeze, not too hot. Which is good because after 15 minutes of walk/trot transitions on the lunge line the mare and filly were sweaty! I left Sheza in a halter but at liberty and she zoomed around the inside perimeter of the arena the first few minutes but eventually realized mom was doing much smaller circles and started just cantering along on the outside of mom, who was trotting. I could see Desire's (big) belly contracting up as she used her muscles--woo bet that was something! She still looks pretty pregnant, haha! Desire did well, she had a little trouble focusing on me and missed some stop cues but I can't really blame her since the filly was being a little rocket for the first while and getting out of her vision occasionally. I put the mare on smaller slow circles to get her more attentive to me asking for stops and change directions and that helped. The baby cut in front of her and she had to stop dead a couple of times which was a little alarming but over all it went really well. The walk down into the big pasture where the arena was, with the mini loose, went better than expected. Sheza is leading really well and trooped down the hill to the arena. The mini was following us but not too closely luckily. Desire has been charging the fence at the mini lately so I think he had a healthy respect for her. I was pretty surprised how sweaty the filly got but she was being a little spazz and galloping around the arena for the first five minutes at least. Fifteen minutes was definitely enough for both! Tonight and tomorrow its supposed to rain so they will have time to rest those sore muscles. I may put them up in a stall if the weather gets really nasty but we'll see. Glad I took the first step on the road to riding the mare again!

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