Time: 1 Hr
Ride: Holy, I realized the other day I never posted about my latest cutting lesson. I barely squeezed it in between all the term papers, finals, and studying, and work that i've been doing lately. When I got there I discovered that a baby had been born recently! So Exciting. Man he is a cutie, he was bouncing around and rearing up on his poor mama. Then he would go for a little run around his stall and slide right down into a stop - pretty cool, that's what good genes get ya! However, Coach is one of those believers in "let a horse be a horse" especially when it's a baby, so we're not allowed to cuddle or coo to it, or anything, until it's quite a bit older. Sad. I just wanna cuddle the baby!!
CD was the first horse I ever worked at Coach's place, and lately i've been riding John Wayne, so I was interested in seeing how different they felt after a couple of rides. We warmed up and then I worked CD on the flag. He was keeping a decent straight line, but he was farther away from the flag than JW usually is, so I always felt like I had to get him closer and closer. When I tried this he'd usually leak away from the flag and lose focus, so it was a lot of stop, back-up, get him in the right position, hold through the line, etc. He's also a big stopper, not in the "showy" sense, but it feels like he's jarring me right out of my seat. I had to really slump and curl low to sit his stops, and I felt like I looked a little too much like quasi-modo for anyones liking haha.
He was a wickedly fun ride though, once we both got eachother sorted out we got some really good work in. My absolute favourite move that cutting horses do is when the flag (or in real life - one of these days - haha cow) moves side to side so the horse has to basically jump from side to side to catch them. I love it. It's that motion that really makes me understand why cutters are often referred to as cats (and not just because of "High Brow Cat" and his many "cat" offsprings haha).
As per usual, all of a sudden, my ride was over. I cooled him off for quite a bit and watched Coach work JW on the flag. Then we sat around talking bloodlines and buying and selling horses for awhile. He has two foals due this year, the colt above, and another, both have some pretty amazing bloodlines. I was drooling all over the idea of a WR This Cats Smart baby. One of my favourite studs for sure. Can't wait to see what the new addition looks like - if I can ever find the time and money to get out there. Sigh.
For Next Time: Clear communication, I did better controlling my legs, but because CD is a bit bigger my hand kept leaping up, I really had to focus to keep my hand down and not move it, which in turn, affected my position.
