Miss Mazy

While Casey has been doing her best to stay sidelined, Mazy still needs to work and lately I have also gotten a chance to fix a few things on me too. 

First we needed to work on her bending and not counterbending, especially thru the turns. I put her back in the lines for this and a friend of mine has suggested a book called "Bending the Driving Horse". 

I can ride the ponies and we work on bending that way. It seems to be working since last Wednesday when working Mazy, we had bend to the inside, we drove deep into our corners and a few other things happened too.  

Mazy has been light and quiet in the bridle. I have been working on a few things with my hands lately. Placement on the reins for one. Quietness is another. Not just asking for the bend but also allowing it. Having an even hold on the reins is something I work at a Lot. Not too long or short, holding them both at the same spot (this one I struggle with) and letting them have light contact on the inside rein for guidance and support while using the outside rein to guide them back to the rail, but also letting it out some when asking for a turn. 

When I'm working a horse in long lines, it's easy to just have quiet hands. The lines go thru the rings and the rings don't move around like our hands do when we ride. Quiet hands help achieve a horse that's quiet in the bridle. They're not gaping at the mouth or as Mazy likes to do when she's bored, impatient or pissed- she bites her teeth. You can hear her going around biting the air to vent her frustrations. 

She's just such a fancy mover. She knows it too. Lol 

Another change we made was the bit. You can see in this last picture that she is going in a simple d-ring snaffle. It has a little thinner mouthpiece and she really seems to like it. The funny thing is I bought this bit for Casey. Well Casey did okay in it, but she prefers the French link for driving. Mazy has been going so well in this d-ring snaffle that we have also been able to work on a lot of long & low movement on a loose rein. The loose rein part is where we struggle also, but Mazy is learning to work with it. When she is working well on a loose line I give her a little bit more. If she speeds up then I can half halt and check her to make sure she understands. As she's moving though I just tend to let her do her own thing. We've done a lot of big circles, small circles, serpentines and just about everything in between and we're getting to the point where Mazy can be working on a looser rein, maintaining her frame and looking amazing as ever.