The Sweet Spot

She makes it look easy...

I watched Karen Rohlf's video on finding the sweet spot on line today at lunch and thought "hey maybe Oak and I are ready for some refinement in our on line work. I should see if I can get him to "find his sweet spot"."

The bad news: I am not sure we found any spot really. Definitely did not get any stretching down. He even fell on his face once too -- so not so balanced either.

The good news: He was very good at maintaining gate without nagging, and he was very calm and responsive. In my search for the elusive spot we also did more trotting than ever before by a long shot. Good for building stamina. He was very calm and took on the extra effort all in stride. We don't have stretching yet, but I know we will.

April Recap

We put in a total of 7 hours of work in the round pen, pasture and arena. We worked on building confidence in objects and movement on his back and behind him/near his back legs. We also worked on building a set of cues for working on the long line on a circle and while ground driving. We started working on wearing tack, giving to the bit, and bearing my weight draped across his back. Our biggest issues this month were anticipation of cues and reactiveness with his back legs.

In May we will continue to focus on our longing skills, and start building towards backing by working more on saddle/mounting block confidence. We will also continue working with the bit, but I am not sure I will use it for our first few rides. 

Oak Training Log May 2

Location: Arena

Duration: 30 mins

Activities: Playing on the line with sustaining the trot working on relaxation and rhythm.


Observations: Great progress on sustaining the trot. Not much stretching yet.