Reference to finished work of my new favorite Midas portrait. I snapped this picture while riding around bareback and bridleless. This horse is so much fun.
She’s 4 years old, but has discovered that Midas leads impeccably. This brings her great delight. It brings me great delight, also.
It will probably be a while before I feel I’ve properly captured the scene in paint.
It’s been pretty mild here–in between days of genuinely bitter cold–but the footing has stayed pretty good. We’re still working on understanding life with a bitless bridle–and I’ve started using the neck rein–holding both the neck rein and the reins as if using a double bridle or something.
Midas loves it.
I mean….we’re not going around looking like a dressage pony, but he steers shockingly well, and stops pretty wel also.
It’s also meant that when I ditch the bridle entirely and just use the neck rein, he handles really well.
On our way to liberty riding! But, I need to spend some time brushing up on my sitting trot, first. Because Midas says he doesn’t believe I can really steer when we’re trotting bareback.
Independent seat, here I come. Right?
Still working on capturing essences.
Throw back to some snapshots from Summer. I’m having a hard time quantifying our progress this year, maybe partly due to not going to a horse show and falling off, like I usually do as a report card.
Probably our biggest thing is that we haven’t used a bit since March–and wouldn’t you know, he puts his head in the bridle now. He was mostly alright to bridle before–oddly better at taking the bit for the people who always rode with one. I often rode him in just a halter, and he was pretty consistently refusing (at first) to take the bit for me. I guess he was trying to tell me something, and figured I might actually listen. And it did work, he has a bitless bridle now, and he really doesn’t abuse it. He’s a lot happier. Granted, I also haven’t asked him to do dressage in it. Not really.
He’s also surprisingly good in a neck rein. Trot is still iffy, but walk is getting impressive.
Bees in the grass put a damper on our jumping practice. I was hoping to get back to jumping practice, but every time we entered the grassy area with jumps we’d come out with a persistent yellow jacket on our tail. Not cool. But he’s pretty happy most of the time, and downright cuddly, and very, very good with children under foot.
