Rolling is better than bucking, right???

Fun session today.  Maria came out and she got most of the saddle time.  We tacked up Maddie together in the aisle (wow, she could not do this a week ago!) and Maria walked her around outside while I set up a small round pen in the arena.  Once Maddie was back I spent 5 minutes checking her flexing and yielding.  Today I just took the slack out of one rein at a time and waited for her to respond.  She came around soft on both sides very well.  When she was spooking at something she tended to "pop" her head up after releasing, but she always obeyed the bit.  This is good.

Maria hopped on and I kept her on the lunge.  We walked and trotted in the round pen and did a lot of changes of direction.  Then we went outside the round pen (which was a tiny one, just 6 panels I think) and repeated.  Maria asked to be unhooked, which she felt very confident about.  We continued by having Maddie kind of follow me around.  We turned into the walls a bunch of times and I felt pretty confident Maria could yield her hindquarters if needed.  BTW, Maddie was handling all this but spent a lot of time tossing her head.  Maria ignored the head tossing and rode on a loose rein.  We ended with Maria walking her away from me, which Maddie obeyed just fine.  When they were about 75 feet away from me, Maddie came to a halt with a quiet sigh and sat down!  She lay on her belly for a moment while Maria stepped off of her, then Maddie rolled a bit.  My poor saddle!  Fortunately Maria was riding without stirrups so Maddie did not get pinched by the irons.  The whole thing was very slow and peaceful.  I told Maria not to accept this again, but we both felt it was not a major disobedience.  Maddie was just exploring her options.  It was pretty impressive that she felt safe enough to sit down, I think.  This was really Maddie's first time at liberty with a rider. 

After the lay down Maria got back on and did enough riding so she would not get ideas about using the lay down to get out of a ride in the future.  I hopped on and off a couple of times and we put Maddie away.  Maria felt we had done enough.  (BTW, she says she wants full props for riding a wild mustang.)  What a thrill!

Yesterday I could not see Maddie until 7:00 pm. We did some good work but the spooky end is driving me nuts!  She was little miss perfect at the safe end, but then all contracted and looking for trouble the closer we got to the junk pile.  Really frustrating, but we made some progress.  Aside from this, her groundwork is really good now.  She has a nice shoulder in on both sides, which we can do on the wall now.  She backs off of the bit nicely as well.