FUN!

FUN was the word of the day. Chance made it very clear from the beginning that he didn't want to work. Rather, he wanted to play. He almost trotted up to me when I went to get him from his stall. While I groomed and saddled him he fidgeted a bit more than usual. When we walked into the arena, he lunged forward, then spun around when he came to the end of the reins. I had my hand through the reins so he came to a quick stop, pulling me a couple feet and slamming the gate closed. I felt really sorry for his mouth. When he repeated the action a few times, I decided to lunge him before riding him. I was hoping for a dead run followed by a few bucks. No such luck. Still, playing was the focus of our session, while trying to incorporate a little training in there. We worked on my roping skills a bit, and Chance kept his head down pretty well. Then we loped very quickly around the arena which was tons of fun! Chance is extremely athletic. Normally I ask him to canter collected, but decided against it today. We worked a little on lead changes and he did pretty well. Then I thought we'd run some barrels and try to change our leads doing that. That didn't quite work out the way that I wanted, but it was still fun. For a grand finale, I let Chance chase his giant toy ball around the arena. The smooth, rocking pace of his walk started putting me to sleep (is it a bad thing when you start to fall asleep on a horse), so we hung up the saddle for the day. It was a good day and I'm glad that Chance let me know what he wanted to do. I didn't work with Brandy because, like I said, I was falling asleep. I'll see her next week, though.