Desert Horses

Welcome to my horse blog, Desert Horses. We live in the desert southwest, near Palm Springs, CA, but board our horses up in our local mountains where it is cooler in the summer. I have 4 horses, all rescues. Here is the ranch up the mountains where the horses stay.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Horse lesson and my lesson



Well, Gigondas, Quad, and Sunni all had their lesson with my trainer today.  I'm really pleased with how much progress Gigo and Sunni have made. Gigo is now quite a lady.  Yes, she's energetic (she LOVES to run!), but she also has manners and waits at gates and waits to be released to run in the arena after her lesson.  She now knows the drill.  And, she LOVES to be groomed!  Sunni now isn't explosive or reactive.  He gave one little flinch today and then settled right down.  I believe he is beyond his explosive, reactive stage and has now moved into a thinking stage...maybe it's partly maturity?  He has a lovely, flowing trot and he wants to please.  He doesn't have a mean bone in his body.  I'm going to work with him Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  I had my first "horse" lesson this afternoon, down in the desert.  I found a wonderful trainer for ME down here in the desert, thanks to my cousin Valerie.  This woman teaches classes twice a week to kids and I stayed and took some photos after my lesson.  No, I didn't ride today.  I led a horse around, gave another one a bath, and cleaned his feet. I told her I really needed to go back to Horse Training and Riding 101 and she took me all the way back to leading a horse, which I wasn't doing properly.  Hmmm...maybe that's why Scout rushes past me?  We also did the "Who's going to be lead horse" dance and I noticed that she also did it with the kids.  I learned a lot today and I have another lesson tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m.  I also have one Thursday afternoon   I am WORN OUT!!!!! Here are a few pics from today.

4 comments:

Margaret said...

Fascinating. I grew up with horses and find it amazing how much I did "wrong". I am leading my horses differently now...wonder if we are doing it the same. I will have to do a blog post on it soon. In many ways, I too went back to horses "101".

Laughing Orca Ranch said...

Well you gotta start somewhere. Good job.

~Lisa

Anonymous said...

Good for you for getting started on your lessons - you're inspiring me . . .

shadowlake2005 said...

Just goes to show it's an endless journey of learning we're on. I too got my leading "skills" corrected and polished a year ago and am so glad to have my practical errors explained and fixed.