Did it Work???

Well last night was the night...Ebony DD's horse has been at the trainer's for 30 days so they could do some figuring out in how she was trained and basically just get her tuned up as I cannot physically do the working part thanks to my back...This mare when we got her 2 years ago she did great, she seemed to be comfortable in everything we did with her. We knew there would be some things to work out of her but after having had a foal last year she just changed her whole attitude...Upon riding her again it was quickly apparent that she was going to do what she wanted or throw a fit about it...Well after the incident at the winter circuit Hubby decided that she would be sent off for some additional training. So that's what we did and we were very excited to pick her up last night and ride her again!! So on our way we of course coming from the middle of no-where decided we would stop and eat real fast, and so we did...By the time we made it to the trainers ranch it was starting to storm, which really sucked because DD was supposed to ride her in the outside arena so she could walk the barrel pattern with her to see how good she's tucking and turning. Of course that didn't happen as the lightening moved in very quickly and then came the rain :( I took a mental note on the fact that the last time we went there we brought rain with us that time too!! However, they have a nice indoor riding arena that she got to ride in. The lighting wasn't real bright but she got to do what she needed!! Very quickly she found out that Ebony is trained completely opposite of how she rides...*Uh-Oh* Sounds like a recipe for disaster if you ask me. I knew from talking to Ebony's original owner that they only rode her in Martingales, and she suggested many times that we switch to them...But I just had an issue with continuing to ride her in them when she needs to graduate out of them!! But lo-and-behold the trainers figured out that is the only way she responds is with Martingales and unfortunately that's what they want to leave her in...The flop side is, is that she does great when riding with those on...And I'm not kidding when I say that she is trained completely different from how we know to ride, she is more trained like a cutting horse. But the neat side to this is that you can practically ride her without using the reins. Now that's all great but it's pretty hard to retrain yourself and your daughter to ride this way...DD rode her last night and I rode her tonight because she was acting up and Hubby definitely did not want DD on her nor did I. So we saddled her up and away we went...At first we worked on some exercises that they taught us. The we worked on steering off leg cues, which wears your legs out pretty quick if your not used to doing this LOL!! All in all she did good, we will try again tomorrow (today for you all) and see how it goes. We did determine that her attitude may have a bit to do with being put back with her foal from last year, they have been separated for 9 months at least and Ebony developed milk today from being with her just for 1 day. So needless to say she got moved to another area, we will have to work on her "permanent" home tomorrow!!

So I uploaded this video of DD riding her in the arena last night, it was pretty dark so you can't see her real well. It was really great because it was raining and hailing and all of the noise didn't bother Ebony one bit!! But please watch your volume as this could potentially blow your ear drum out...And that would not be good!!