Indy under saddle

After I worked with Jake yesterday, I also spent some time with IndyAnna. I wanted to try her in a saddle and see how she'd handle being mounted from the ground. After some ground work, friendly game, driving game and circling game again, I got the saddle. Immediately she started nosing and licking it like she does most everything. She didn't flinch at all when I put it on her back, but rather turned and sniffed the saddle and mouthed it a bit - definitely more curious than scared. I only have 2 girths - one is too small and the other is nearly too big. I used the bigger one, but it was on the last hole on both sides of the saddle. Even at that it wasn't as snug as it should have been because it slipped a bit when I was mounting up.

I mounted and dismounted several times on her left side and after each time I'd move her around just to make sure she wasn't freezing up and going introverted. Although all her other behaviour didn't suggest she was bothered in any way (blinking, head low, looking from side to side). I also worked on getting her to bend her head from side to side to make sure I could bend her to a stop once on her back. I then rode her around the round pen. Getting her to stop is not a problem! Getting her to go is a whole other story. For about half hour I would go from phase 1 to phase 4 in leg pressure to get her to move forward. Each time I'd have to go to phase 4 before she'd move, I'd release, and she would stop. It was quite a while before she'd move more than a couple of steps, but then finally she took 4 steps, then 6 and soon after that she made it once around the round pen before stopping. Yay! It'll be a while before we're trotting, but for now it's one step at a time, literally!

After we were all done I put Holly up on her back and led her around the pen. She was just like an old hand at this! I'm very pleased with her so far.