It’s fall, I should probably be taking advantage of the crisp air to throw a saddle on and do some hand galloping. But my gut, for some reason, has this deep obsession with bareback work and pushing toward bridlelessness.
We have also been doing some ground work with elevated poles–two in a row–to help with the two fences in a row gremlin. I unfortunately haven’t had a lot of ride time so I haven’t been able to tackle two fences under saddle.
But we’ve been making the most of it–lots of bareback work and lots of focus on steering with the seat and legs. You know our legs-only serpentines look quite respectable now. I even rode with my hands out like a…paper airplane…maintaining straightness without touching the reins at all (yay, he’s figured out that me letting go doesn’t mean “ignore everything she does”).
We’ve practice some at trot, I still can’t pick up the trot worth beans without reins (partly a mental block for me) but we can actually trot a potato chip relying almost entirely on legs. I’m pretty excited.