Drive Away!
I set up the first lesson with the mini mare and her owner this morning. Sierra, the mare, is about 29" and comes to the middleish of my thigh. She's tobiano and I think a silver dapple (black). I don't think she's grulla as she doesn't have a dorsal stripe or anything. She is a slate grey color besides.
We started with seeing what she knew ground-wise and how she responded to whip cues. Not very educated, but she wasn't reactive or silly about it either. We then played with the harness and got it fitted to her. The shaft hobble set-up was weird, but I think we have it figured out. I ground drove her briefly and she steered alright. Next time we'll see how the whip buttons are (moving shoulder and hip over and eventually leg-yield and side-pass) and do some more ground driving. Depending on how that goes we'll hitch her to the cart and go from there. She has a nice-sized turn-out to get the feel of the mini and the shoulders on the roads are pretty wide when we're ready for that.
And no, I didn't stand there wondering what the heck to do with it. I can see how people get into trouble with minis. There's just not much to them and you can get away with skipping some things and not immediately kill yourself because the power between mini and person is a bit more even.
I then had Natalie's lesson and we had Chewy in the roundpen so we could concentrate on the posting trot. Her mother was quite pleased n she commented that it was the first lesson where it looked like Natalie was where they had left off with the previous instructor. Next up posting and steering!
I had a brief break before going to Sue's to work with her and Bud. After spending the last few weeks playing in Sue's turnout and waiting on the new set of shafts. The new shafts were on this morning and we reset the harness accordingly. The traces got to be shortened two holes, which put Bud closer to the cart and improved the balance quite a bit as we had hoped. We adjusted the hold backs as well and were quite happy with the overall picture. Once we got him moving we determined that it was set properly and I was abke to sit a bit closer to the back of the bench. With the old shafts I had to sit at the very front of the seat to keep the shafts from bouncing. I started at the back of the seat this time and moved forward a couple inches after I asked him to trot off as they did bounce a little in the hobbles. If it were just me in the cart or just Sue it would be fine, but I think our combined 350+ is a little more than the cart is balanced for set against the back of tthe bench. It doesn't help that both of us are short-legged. It's just as well. I have to sit forward on the bench to be able to plant my feet on the ground anyway (when I'm at training my instructor puts a Western saddle pad down that gives me a good extra 3").
So the cart was much better balanced and I think Bud was happily surprised to not have the shafts poke him in the neck when he bentt around. Considering it has been about six weeks since Bud has been around the neighborhood he did awesome. No spooks and just a few eyeballs. Sue had him for about half the time and is getting more confident and comfortable. She even had him trot a bit. Now that things are cooling down and the shafts have been squared away Sue plans on driving him between lessons. At least in her turn out area; she isn't quite ready to tackle the neighborhood alone just yet. I think once she works through some of her confidence issues the pair of them will do just fine.
The last of the carpet went in today. When the carpet guy asked me to look at it I was worried at first. The early morning brightness shining on it caused it to look vaguely like astroturf (it is a green color). On closer inspection and at a different angle it lookes better, but I wasn't completely comforted until I saw it an hour or so later in the house. It looks quite nice if I do say so myself and Chris was rather pleased when he came home.
Now we just have counter tops on Wednesday and the accompanying appliances and plumbing to finish.
We started with seeing what she knew ground-wise and how she responded to whip cues. Not very educated, but she wasn't reactive or silly about it either. We then played with the harness and got it fitted to her. The shaft hobble set-up was weird, but I think we have it figured out. I ground drove her briefly and she steered alright. Next time we'll see how the whip buttons are (moving shoulder and hip over and eventually leg-yield and side-pass) and do some more ground driving. Depending on how that goes we'll hitch her to the cart and go from there. She has a nice-sized turn-out to get the feel of the mini and the shoulders on the roads are pretty wide when we're ready for that.
And no, I didn't stand there wondering what the heck to do with it. I can see how people get into trouble with minis. There's just not much to them and you can get away with skipping some things and not immediately kill yourself because the power between mini and person is a bit more even.
I then had Natalie's lesson and we had Chewy in the roundpen so we could concentrate on the posting trot. Her mother was quite pleased n she commented that it was the first lesson where it looked like Natalie was where they had left off with the previous instructor. Next up posting and steering!
I had a brief break before going to Sue's to work with her and Bud. After spending the last few weeks playing in Sue's turnout and waiting on the new set of shafts. The new shafts were on this morning and we reset the harness accordingly. The traces got to be shortened two holes, which put Bud closer to the cart and improved the balance quite a bit as we had hoped. We adjusted the hold backs as well and were quite happy with the overall picture. Once we got him moving we determined that it was set properly and I was abke to sit a bit closer to the back of the bench. With the old shafts I had to sit at the very front of the seat to keep the shafts from bouncing. I started at the back of the seat this time and moved forward a couple inches after I asked him to trot off as they did bounce a little in the hobbles. If it were just me in the cart or just Sue it would be fine, but I think our combined 350+ is a little more than the cart is balanced for set against the back of tthe bench. It doesn't help that both of us are short-legged. It's just as well. I have to sit forward on the bench to be able to plant my feet on the ground anyway (when I'm at training my instructor puts a Western saddle pad down that gives me a good extra 3").
So the cart was much better balanced and I think Bud was happily surprised to not have the shafts poke him in the neck when he bentt around. Considering it has been about six weeks since Bud has been around the neighborhood he did awesome. No spooks and just a few eyeballs. Sue had him for about half the time and is getting more confident and comfortable. She even had him trot a bit. Now that things are cooling down and the shafts have been squared away Sue plans on driving him between lessons. At least in her turn out area; she isn't quite ready to tackle the neighborhood alone just yet. I think once she works through some of her confidence issues the pair of them will do just fine.
The last of the carpet went in today. When the carpet guy asked me to look at it I was worried at first. The early morning brightness shining on it caused it to look vaguely like astroturf (it is a green color). On closer inspection and at a different angle it lookes better, but I wasn't completely comforted until I saw it an hour or so later in the house. It looks quite nice if I do say so myself and Chris was rather pleased when he came home.
Now we just have counter tops on Wednesday and the accompanying appliances and plumbing to finish.