The last week of the project is here. I definitely think me and Ariel ended up right where I hoped we would. We made great progress increasing our times from around 17 seconds to 12. Ariel picked up so much speed once I got her into shape. I think the best way to start an event for a horse is how this project made me. I had to work slow, and watch over and over again the videos I posted on here to help me understand what I needed to improve on. We started out slow and worked our way each week to being where we are now! I wouldn’t call Ariel finished yet, but she is definitely very close. When I first started this project everytime I got on Ariel she tried to buck me off at least once. Now I get on her and she’s perfect the whole time. Here is a video of all our progress
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As Genious Hour comes to an end, I feel like me and Ariel have made perfect progress. This week I have worked on my tying, and not working with Ariel. I haven’t been able to get videos, so here I have a mixture of all the progress I have made with my tie! This weekend I rode twice. My parents were out of town so I didn’t have any way to video, and for safety reasons I just rode on the trails. It’s always good to work a horse outside the arena, as a break from all the hard work and just to relax. Here I have some pictures from our rides
. With winter coming it’s getting harder and harder for me to find time to ride. It gets dark by the time I get home and am able to ride, so it’s been strictly weekends here recently. Ariel has been very good and i’ve mostly been working on ground work and getting up strength. Since the main rodeo season is over we haven’t gotten to haul anywhere for anything so my progress is getting really slow.
Once again the weather this week has really hurt my progress. I was able to ride once, and half the arena was soaked, so I just worked on my dismounts. Ariel was really good. We basically jumped straight into dismounts, and given she has had almost 2 weeks off she picked up right where we left off. This week I have ridden Ariel once. Due to the cold weather, and a wet arena it’s been hard to find a good place and time to ride. I don’t have videos from this week, but i’ll explain what I worked on.
Ariel still needs to build up speed, so now that i’m not preparing for a rodeo, i’m taking a break from working on the dismount and working more on building muscle. I loped circles for what seemed like forever, and spent most of the ride pushing Ariel to go faster. I did this by running in straight lines all the way down the arena, kicking and whipping all the way down. Once I got to the end, I pulled Ariel back into a walk, and walked back down to the end of the arena. We repeated those steps 5 times. A week ago me and Ariel finished our last NCYRA rodeo of the season. I went into the weekend 1st in points for the goat tying. Ariel did great this weekend. She really preformed great and i couldn’t be more proud of her. However I did terrible and we were bumped down to 3rd in points. I have given Ariel the week off, so below are videos of our runs from finals! This week Ariel has been everything but good. The week before I run the most important rodeo of the season she starts to act up. I think we have got most of our problems sorted out, however I am very nervous for finals. Wednesday I took Ariel to Lone Hickory, an indoor arena up the road from my house. She did very good, as you can see in the first video clip. She kept up her lope as I got off. We still aren’t as fast as we need to be but there is definitely improvement. Saturday we went to Pilot Mountain again. She behaved terrible, and started dodging out of the way when we got close to the goat, causing me to lose momentum and stumble instead of smoothly getting off. We worked with simply running Ariel straight towards the goat and not having me get off. You can see the results of that excersize in the 2nd video. Due to the rainy weather and a very muddy arena at home, this week has been a setback. I have ridden Ariel twice this week, hauling her Saturday to Pilot Mountain, and Sunday riding at home. My dad has a friend who trains and works with rodeo kids, and she has helped me a lot these past weeks. Saturday we hauled up to her barn, and practiced slow work, getting to the goat in a consistent path, and getting my tie perfected. The clip below is my ride at home on Sunday. I worked with a goat tying dummy instead of a real goat just to get Ariel used to change. She was very hesitant, and as you can tell, tried to pull out to the side of the goat. That made my dismount a disaster, and I had to loop back around, adding seconds to our time. The problem I mentioned before has to be fixed soon. The association I rodeo at is having Finals October 21 and 22. I have made the decision to run Ariel in goats. It is very important that both days go perfect. I am leading the year round points in goats, and one mistake can bump me down to second. I am putting a lot of faith into Ariel, but I believe with all the hard work and practice we have done, she will be fine. This week has been very exciting for me! My mom surprised me with goats Saturday morning! Since I now have goats, this week has been all about practicing my tying and getting Ariel used to the goats. Last Thursday we hauled Ariel to an outdoor arena, where we practiced my dismount, and running straight toward the goat. Saturday I introduced Ariel to the more friendly of the two goats, Cactus. Overall I think Ariel liked Cactus more than Cactus liked Ariel. Tuesday I rode Ariel, and practiced tying the goat. In the first clip, I rode all the way down the arena in dismount position. This teaches Ariel to stay moving as I am dismounting. In the second clip, I really pushed Ariel down the arena, and I was very proud of her. She kept up the pace as I got off perfectly. The third picture is just cute little Cactus!! In the fourth video Ariel got to meet Cactus for the first time, she wasn’t scared of him at all. Lastly is a slower run, in which Ariel hesitated running full speed toward Cactus. Speed is very important and even something as simple as hesitation can really slow down our time. This week I will work on keeping Ariel at a consistent speed all the way up to the goat.
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