Drum roll Please!

After almost a week of being super duper busy, I finally sat down to upload my pictures yesterday at 10:00 pm... I would've rather been sleeping, but here they are! BTW, I absolutely LOVE the picture above, the colors, the textures and the movement... I don't even remember taking it... eesh!

On Friday, August 6, I've succesfully put a saddle on Misty... for the first time in her life. I was very pleased, she was nervous and probably asking questions like crazy, but she trusted and followed quite well. Here are a few pictures of that adventure:

Above: Misty is getting brushed thoroughly for the first time... She seemed to enjoy it. Her skin is sensitive, so I went easy with the plastic curry... overall, she was ok with it.

Above: Then came the saddle pad, she got to meet it, chew it and play with it first, then we put it on her back... she was ok with the putting it on part, but was a bit antsy when it wouldn't come off, so she moved her feet a bit, but never ran off or bucked... she was pretty quiet... so I brought the saddle over.

Above: Before swinging the saddle over, Misty met the saddle and chewed a bit on it (which I stopped her from doing immediatly, without being too mean, she didn't know what this thing was!). After we've seen that she was ok with it, I had my sister hold her (that's me holding her in the picture) and I put the saddle gently on her. I was a bit nervous and actually held the saddle (and my breath) for about 2 minutes almost over Misty's back before resting it on her... I remember that she was quite explosive when we first started working with her and I was afraid that something like that would happen and damage my precious saddle! lol

Anyways, the saddle on her back didn't bother her, so we proceeded to tighten the girth. A bit antsy, but I've seen well broke horses move more than that when cinching up. We progressively walked and thightened the cinch, then walk again and so on.

Here is what she was like after two short walking sessions with the saddle on:

You can see that she is a bit nervous, not much... the saddle is squeaky and she listens for that noise. She is a little distracted because her friends are in her field of vision and she wants them to come back, but she got better after a few more walks.

After having walked a few times more, I decided to try my hand at putting my foot up in the stirrup. So I grabbed my helmet and off I went. When I first put my foot up (no weight) Misty was wondering what was going on, then she moved a bit and I followed her until she settled. I put a little weight and repeated with more weight each time. The last thing I did was put all of my weight in the stirrup... Misty didn't move, wasn't even off balance (I'm impressed 'cause I'm not a small person, as you can see). I immediatly proceeded to unsaddle Misty and let her go. She stood great for unsaddling and I even let the off side stirrup and girth down so it rubbed on her when I took the saddle off... no reaction at all. She was off to see her friends which had migrated to the far end of the field... she walked then trotted away from us and when she was far enough, she shifted into high gear and ran at a full galop right to the other end. She is better about being apart of her friends now, but I guess she likes to be close to them if given the chance... who doesn't?

All in all, a good session with Misty. It lasted about 45 minutes... as you can see, we were loosing daylight and I didn't want to over do it. Sessions will be kept short and we will progress slowly in order to make a great riding horse.