5 minutes...

...of loping your horse will def give your legs and abs a workout!

Matt and I put the kids in daycare this morning and went off to the barn and loaded Leo up and headed to Jack Brooks to ride. We had a bit of fun before I got down to business with Leo. A guy was practicing roping with some calves he brought. When he missed, Leo and I would get after the calf to get it to the back of the arena to go in the shoot area. It was a lot of fun.

Once the guy took a break and gave his horse a rest, I began my training with Leo. Clinton says the only way to get your horse to lope slow is to lope and lope and lope them, and when they get tired, lope them some more, and when they are about to keel over, lope them a little bit more. This teaches the horse that when the rider ask them to lope, to just lope slow b/c they don't know if they are going to be loping for 2 mins or 2 hrs so they need to conserve their energy. Leo doesn't spaz out or anything or take off fast, but he still doesn't have a slow, relaxed lope until after a few rounds around the arena...and it's a pretty big arena. But he did really well today. There were other riders too that were there and said that he is a beautiful horse and that they love his blue eyes.  Yeah, I do too. :)

Once I finished my exercise I gave him a rest then cooled him down. He is such a good boy and has such a good mind. He did great with all the commotion going on there from the other riders. No spook what-so-ever. Hopefully, maybe within the week, I will be able to get up with my trainer friend, Shannon Crawford, to get his advice on how I'm doing and what I'm doing right and wrong. I still have so much to learn and any chance I get to work with this guy I'm going to take it.

Well, I am off to go take a short nap while I can since both kids are napping.

♥ K