Maraschino's first ride out - 2nd time round

So I'm going to call her the Crash Test Dummy - but her name is Tarryn and she is one cool cucumber and a great rider, and lovely person - great with the horses... the girls get her in for the first rides...

Before she arrived Michaela had done some ground preparation with the flags - he thinks he's pretty clever now with the flags. Any sign of lameness was gone so that was good.

Then Tarryn checked him out on the ground, bumping stirrups etc, disengaging the HQ, they call it rolling over the HQ. Then she hopped on and basically did exactly what Parelli peeps would do which was lovely to see. One rein riding with just the halter and lead rope and tossing from side to side, lateral flexion alot, disengaging the HQ, lots of rubbing.

The new kitten was watching him go round the round pen with me.

   

Tarryn was really good with Maraschino and I liked the way she was with him, really patient and so confident.

Michaela was there to drive or send from the ground if needed. Or to move the HQ, or move the FQ.

At one point she was trotting him round the outside and touched him on the rump with her hand and he did a huge scoot and tucked his bum under him - she just calmly asked him to a stop with one rein with no change in her voice what so ever while she talked to him.

Then she asked for canter and he managed 1/4-1/2 a lap before he got a bit worried and started bucking - not big bucks, so Tarryn asked for a one rein stop and it took a while for her to get his head (they don't use the power position like we do) - he was pretty worried with the whole canter-buck-emergency stop - she ;et him ret for ages and you could see he was busy processing.

She trotted him again both ways and stopped nicely before getting off and by then he was licking alot  - I was really happy with the whole session.