Skittles comes home for a week

Ken had to go out of town this week, so Skittles came home. She'll go back on Thursday. In the meantime, I get to play with her myself! It's not quite as nice as working in a covered arena, but we survived. As long as there's no wind, it's not too bad out here (now that winter has arrivved!). We got pretty spoiled with the nice fall weather, I'm turning into a bit of a wimp!

Skittles has been doing quite well at Ken's these past couple of weeks. He's worked more with her on the ground than from her back -- mostly because she still has a lot of fear issues that she needs to work through. She's definitely getting better each day. He generally does ride her for a few minutes each session, but nothing significant yet. She's really quite hilarious when he gets on her back. She's still trying to figure out how to carry the extra weight and stay balanced. And the whole time Ken is on her back, she groans and grunts. So funny! Sounds like she's going to collapse any minute.

Thankfully when I got on her today she didn't make a sound! Whew!

I started working with her on the ground to make sure I had her mind, had her relaxed and could do everything from both sides without any issues. This was about 30 minutes. Then I put the saddle on. Since Ken has been working her in a western saddle, I did the same -- just to be consistent. I don't want to introduce too many changes to her right off, but rather keep her comfortable with her existing routine. I started out by climbing up on the fence and asking her to come up beside me and see me from above. I swung the rope from side to side moved the stirrups back and forth, and then sat on her. She's done this tons at Ken's so she's pretty OK with it. He also throws his lariat out in front of her on the ground and then drags it back over her and coils it up. I don't have a lariat, so couldn't do that.

After that I got down off her and off the fence and led her to the middle of the round pen and mounted up. At first I just got on her left side and off her right side. Then moved her around again and mounted up again. Also, I didn't have her in a bridle --- just the halter and lead rope.

So I turned her right until she moved her feet. She pretty much kept going in circles by the gate. The other horses were hanging by the round pen too, so she kept turning back toward them. No big deal at this point. The idea is to create a pleasant experience for her. She tends not to walk too far before stopping, so I made it a goal to get her to walk once around the round pen without stopping. I'd only ask her to go (squeeze with my legs) when she stopped and as soon as she moved her feet, I'd release. Sometimes I only got 1 or 2 steps, but eventually she got most of the way around the pen. Keeping her to the outside of the pen was a challenge. She mostly used the bottom half closest to the gate and the other horses. I let her stay within her comfort zone for now. This was my first time riding her after all! Like Ken, I didn't try to micromanage her. She's still working out how to move her feet and maintain gait.

After about 20 minutes of riding, she managed to get around the pen without stopping (only cut off about the top third of the pen). So I worked on backing her up next and could do that almost with just shifting my weight! A couple times she needed the support from the lead line, but she's pretty sensitive and light! Cool!

I scared her once while flipping the rope over her head to change sides and she bucked a couple times, but didn't flip out like the old Skittles would have, and settled pretty quickly. After that I swung the rope a couple times beside her head before flipping it over! She was OK with that.

I had her stop in the middle of the pen away from the gate and got off. BIG sigh and lots of licking. I tied her up to the trailer and went to get my camera, so that's the only photo for today. A pretty good day in my books!!