Meet I'm A Lil Elegant (aka Ali)

Its official I stink at blogging! When I have the time to blog I don't have the motivation, when I don't have the time I want to write. So I have the time and I'm just going to write.

Over a month ago I went for a riding lesson that turned into me meeting and riding a 5 year old paint named Ali.

Even though she is 5 years old she is probably the most sane 5 year old I have ever met. I have yet to witness her spook at anything and even though she does test what you know she is a very willing horse.

At first my goal was to work with her enough that we could do some dressage shows in the spring, but I have changed my goals into just having fun with her. Horseback riding has never been a source of leisure fun for myself. With each ride I always have a goal and if I don't accomplish that goal I feel like I have failed, but no more! I will still make goals but these goals will be "go for a trail ride" "get a few strides of relaxed canter" "HAVE FUN".

Today we went on a trail ride and encountered one habit of Ali's that is going to take some time to correct. She likes to balk. In the ring she does it in on particular corner (by the gate) and today I realized she will also do it on the trail. She isn't spooky, she just stops and refuses to go forward. I don't have a crop to bring on the trail with me (in the ring I use a lunge whip when I need it but it generally only takes a few taps with my leg to get the message across). I know that kicking her doesn't phase her and I tried making small circles but she would stop as soon as I had her straighten to go in the direction I wanted. Since I didn't want to keep doing circles in someone's driveway (we were on a dead end road) I got off and made her trot down the road with me, working on making the trot longer and shorter. I would then hop back on (need to work on mounting from the ground haha!) and we would keep going. I had to do this twice today but I am hoping with more work it won't be an issue. It's a good thing that I would never let her go back to the barn without it being my idea first.

Hopefully on Thursday I will be having a riding lesson at a new barn *crosses fingers*.

Also school starts on Tuesday (HELLO SENIOR YEAR!), and I have yet to buy books haha gotta get on top of that!

Thanks for reading :)