March 14, 2020 Volume 15, Issue 11
Hi all, it’s Kevin here again.
The ponies!
We’ve just wrapped up our third week of our winter horsemanship program. We had a smaller group, which means we were able to give lots of one on one attention. We started the week off with some beautiful almost spring like weather, but by Friday afternoon we had howling winds and freezing temps. Maybe this will be the last cold snap!!! I’m ready for some warmer weather even though I enjoyed winter very much.
With this group of guests we were able to get them, along with several ranch horses, prepped on the cutting flag. The past few weeks we haven’t used it as much do to the fact we were working on other things and had much larger groups. But our guests Wendy, Shayne R., and Joy did fantastic and got lots of ‘go time’ on it, as well as all the wranglers.
The cutting flag is truly an amazing teaching tool plus it’s one of the most fun things you can do on a horse. It
Scott and Chalkeye on the cutting flag
only takes a couple of turns and you’re hooked! The crew and I got a lot of horses on the flag leading up to the start of the winter horsemanship season, and some of these horses are really starting to get good.
Allowing the guests to have a blast cutting is one of Shayne’s big goals for the horsemanship sessions this year. We were happy to see that our work is paying off, only making us want to improve and refine it even more. This involves making clean stops; getting our horses to reach and turn on their own without help so the guests can feel when one is really hooked on; as well as a press off or leg yield to set up your next turn. When all for pieces of the dance come together with the flag or cow it is a great feeling and hopefully on your next stay at the ranch you will have a chance to experience it.
Shayne’s R.’s first week of riding lessons. She did great!
In other exciting news on the ranch, we had new arrivals this week- Des’ new colts, Lefty and Nicz arrived and are the cutest! Brenda also returned from a well deserved vacation and we are happy to have her back J.
That’s all the news for this week. Until next time,
Kevin
Tucker never misses a chance for a nap 🙂
Joy riding Booker.
Wendy and Mighty did fabulous throughout the week!