Fantastic Play Day Today!!!

Nicole hosted a play day today for the OPP members and Renegade and I had a fantastic time. We played with lots of things today. First was trailer loading at home, since we were picking up another person he had to be tied and the divider closed (slant load). Renegade is used to riding untied and in the open trailer but he did great and was accepting of the other horse in "his" trailer. Of course it helped it was a very sweet mare!!

We played online for awhile in the morning, I was playing with being particular without being critical but not micromanaging either and trying to really pay attention to my energy. It was lots of fun and I got some interesting results - caused me to think quite a bit!!

Riding was interesting as well. During the workshops last weekend, Renegade really had a problem with horses coming up in his zone 5 so today we played with that a bit and he started getting pretty relaxed about it and not feeling the need to protect his zone 5. I also asked other people to ride up close to us while we just stood quietly and that went well. We were mindful of Renegade's bubble and not pushing on it too much at one time and using approach and retreat. We went on a mini trail ride and played with having horses change position in the line and had some fun with that. One of the horses that generally has a problem with kicking other horses out on the trail and we played with her bubble in zone 5 as well. She did GREAT - not one episode of kicking, although she did get "nasty ears" a couple of times, but NO KICKING!! Just goes to show you what you can accomplish when you ride with SAVVY people!!

When we got back from the trail ride Renegade and I rode some circles at the trot around a barrel then trotted some figure 8's. I tried really hard to leave the reins alone and ride with focus and it was fantastic - I only had to do a couple of corrections!! Our circles need work, they were a little lopsided but I wasn't concerned about that right now - the goal was following my focus and feel and I met that goal so it was a GREAT DAY!!

Also, I do want to thank Jerry Williams, the Parelli Instructor teaching the workshops last weekend. He gave me several things to play with and work on and I had fun with those things today!! Thanks Jerry!!!