Rita Mason <fadaar@aol.com>
Sun 7/27/2014 6:26 PM
Hey John and Annie,
So here I am riding my two year old - ride number 3. Haven't ridden her for more than a total of 30 minutes so far. She is of course in full Boz gear. She is carrying the bit, but the reins are attached to the side pulls on the halter. You can see how relaxed she is and how accepting she is of the commands to turn.
Also, thanks to everything I learned from the clinics, I have yet another horse moving up the dressage levels faster than any other horse I know. With only 5 months under saddle the horse I am now showing for a friend is winning classes at training and first level. She can leg yield all the way across the arena in only half the length. If we work on it, I won't be long before she can go straight across... we will be headed to Nationals in Idaho in September to collect some more awards - currently she is first in the nation at both training level and first level median scores for half Arabians. At our last show a couple weeks ago she won her first level class (against warmbloods) by 9%.
Your training methods work on horse after horse - of course. Other horses at my barn have been under saddle for years and aren't accomplishing much more than 20 meter circles...
Hope all is well!
Rita