On the subject of bending...

[dreaminmini]

Since there is another thread going on about bending it was very helpful to read for myself as I am a novice driver, it also got me thinking about my mare Fleur. My 3 year old mare JEM Break N Pattern has been working on her driving and I am pretty proud of how she is coming along. She has been really quick to learn and REALLY loves to drive. Lord, help us all if another horse is being hitched and not her.

She bugs to go, butting you with her nose, pulling on jackets, pulling the cross tie.

I took a video of Fleur and Lori (Milo Minis) 2 weeks ago at our weekly lesson. I like to see the videos as an additional learning tool so I can see/understand better and hopefully use it to improve my driving and work better with Fleur. We are at the stage where we are teaching her to bend now, you will notice some head bobbing. Hope you guys take a look, I love to learn so any comments you guys want to share would be welcome. Thanks for letting me share.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

I am in the learning process myself so cannot comment on the performance, but I have to say I think they are doing very well with the traffic distraction.

I look forward to hearing instructive comments also.

 

[MiLo Minis]

Fleur is a really lovely little mare that I think has potential for Pleasure class. Kim has decided that she would prefer to bring her along naturally with work rather than taking short cuts to get her into the ring as she intends to show her for many years and doesn't want to risk stress injuries and so will drive her in Country pleasure this year. When she moves at liberty she has quite a lot of action in her knees and hocks but of course loses it somewhat under harness at this stage. She has been driving now for several months, excepts the bit well and is quite relaxed and happy in her driving at most times and she does love to get out and drive!

We have been asking for bend all along with her but she is just now starting to get the hang of it. She stresses a bit coming into the corners, bobbing her head and turning it out to the side while falling in somewhat. Every once in a while she gives me a nicely balanced turn so I know it is almost there! We have been working on large ovals, big circles and sweeping figures of 8. As she progresses we will start to ask for more complicated, tighter figures such as serpentines.

I was unfortunately more than a little bit distracted from Fleur here as Garnet was driving my green horse Manny who has a habit of coming out gangbusters to start and it takes him a fair bit of time to settle down. You can hear Garnet telling Manny to whoa at one point and Fleur came to a halt!

I had to laugh! That is the downfall to teaching a good solid WHOA - gotta come up with some other word!