Yesterday morning, Friday, was a nice day - a little breezy, but still nice. We decided to work with the horses again.
On Thursday morning we both rode our horses in the back. Since we've been gone so much and had some minor health issues we haven't been able to ride as consistently as we want. So, we're going back to the basics to re-establish our connection and communication with Sugar and Morgunn. The only problem we had on Thursday morning is Morgunn is really connected to Sugar so he had a hard time when she wasn't close. That's called being 'buddy-sour.' It added an extra distraction for Betty as she was working with him. She did well, but she couldn't focus completely on the exercises she wanted to do with Morgunn.
Betty had a good idea and we did it on Friday morning. Betty saddled up Morgunn and rode him in the back. I took Sugar, without her saddle, into our round pen and did some ground work. Morgunn could see Sugar, but he couldn't get to her. So he paid much more attention to Betty and it went a lot better. She was able to focus more on the exercises without having to deal with him thinking about Sugar. I did a lot of good ground work with Sugar which was good.
We're going to do this a couple more times next week and then we may swap. I'll ride Sugar while Betty does ground work with Morgunn in the round pen.
Vince Lombardi, Green Bay Packers coach, used to hold up a football at the first practice of each year and say, "Gentlemen, this is a football." He knew the value of rebuilding a good foundation for his players by focusing on the basics. Sometimes we need to go back to the basics with Sugar and Morgunn and it's worth the time.
4 comments:
The foundation is the most important thing and reviewing basics is never wasted time. Glad you got in some good horse time.
I kept waiting for the punchline at the end after Lombardi's statement..
Like-Betty, this is a horse, or Dan, on the ground there is...
glad you are both feeling well enough to ride, I know it a joy for you both.
Agreed basics are the foundation. When things get rough going back to them is never a bad thing.
Glad you guys are feeling better.
We often start with "this is a lead rope." funny how you have to bring it back around every now and again.
Glad you found a good way to work thru the buddy sour thing, I had a trainer tell me once he had a horse so buddy sour, he'd just pony him to avoid the drama. Lol
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