More on Rachel and Grandma and an Arabian Horse Part 4

The Rachel and Grandma and an Arabian Horse series begins with the original post. Yesterday's post is the beginning of current happenings in the series is More on Rachel and Grandma and an Arabian Horse

Because Rachel's riding has gone downhill over the past few months while Dandy was laid up, I decided that the best way to help her recover was to control her riding the Arabian horse as much as possible. So Rachel has been instructed she is not to ride the horse unless I am there to monitor how it is going and help where needed.

Crystal has other horses that Rachel is free to ride when I am not there. This will help her build up her strength and experience level without teaching Dandy any bad habits, like being long and ignoring Rachel's legs. With my supervision I can assure the horse continues to only have Rachel riding him in a collected manor.

To further this along I always school the horse first before Rachel rides. I warm the Arabian horse up and get him moving correctly before I ever turn the horse over to her. Each day he gets closer and closer to going the way he was before the injury. It's really too bad we didn't make it to Youth Nationals this year, the horse is doing awesome.

The very first day with these exercises were difficult ones. Rachel shed a few tears in her frustration and I'm not so sure Dandy, the Arabian horse, wouldn't have shed tears if it were possible. But eventually, it did all come together and both were relieved to be done with it.



On the second day, we picked up where we left off. I sent Rachel riding back into the corner to show me what she'd learned in the exercises. Once she was completing them correctly, I changed them up a little.

At random times I sent her off around me in a larger circle to see if she could hold the horse together giving her instructions on how to use the exercises she'd learned to keep him in frame and then sent her right back into the smaller figure eight to help her keep him together.


Changing up between the figure eight and the large circle, I used the big circle to ask her to lope. I instructed her to ask the Arabian horse to move to the outside and then ask him to lope. The result was as pretty a lope departure as that horse has ever given anyone.

Rachel and Dandy still have some work to do before the end of the week. That is for sure but Rachel has never ever ridden the Arabian horse as collected as he is going for her right now. Dandy and Rachel are definitely headed to the show and, of course, that is with Grandma in tow.

To be continued...............




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