Video - Riding Tiger and Wy...and Wy again...

Hello all!

This is a 4 1/2 minute video for those of you who have loading issues.

It starts out with Brian riding Tiger, then I take Wyoming to the back woods for the first time, and again today. Just so you all know, I don't like spiders! EEK! This is the time of year where spiders have webs up between every single tree, and some tree spans have two webs! Argh! Ew! Ptooey! So, what freaks me out the most has also turned into a great training session because any horse that can deal with me flailing my arms and verbally expressing my displeasure while flinging off spiders and tearing off webs that are attached to my head, can deal with anything!

Wyoming still does not have power steering, so we worked on circling around trees. I could not get video of that because it was a challenge to get all those turns in and hold the camera, so we focused on turns.

The first trip back he was kind of ticklish about the weeds rubbing his belly and the branches rubbing his sides. It did not take long for him to ignore them. Today's ride was awesome! He did not respond to any of the branches rubbing him. Going under branches I would lay across his neck, and he would not speed up like some horses will do, he did not get too close to trees so rubbing me off was not a concern, and when it came to going over the dead fall and creek crossings (small ones) he handled it like a seasoned horse! Don't get me wrong, he is a live-wire and loves to go go go, but 99.9% of the time he listened to me without an argument. There was one creek crossing that is pretty deep and wide and I really expected him to jump it, but he got his front feet to the edge, and we just slid down, and he scrambled up the other side. Okay, works for me! :-) We finally did jump one small creek (which I did get on video!) but he did not jump it and take off, so that was good too.

We also trotted and cantered for the first time today. (Tried it in the pen a while back and he was not comfortable with it) He cantered up one hill, then later on I asked him to canter again and he had no complaints since we were headed back to the house. Now that I know he can trot and canter - even if it was around the hills - I know I can push him in the pen. We are going to set up barrels and work on the steering too. I will even be happy with the steering of a sports car - firm with a sport suspension! Yep, that would be more than acceptable.

Enjoy!



Until later...Karen and Tripp