I had the wonderful opportunity again this year to attend a 4 day level 2/3 camp at 5* Parelli Instructor Carol Coppinger's Farm near Nashville, Tennessee. It is about a 7 hour drive with the horse and this time the hubby and the kids didn't stay. I drove behind Niels in our car and followed him pulling the trailer.
4 days of uninterrupted horse time. Life does not get much better than that! We built on what we had done last year including more patterns such as the weave, circles, etc. We also did quite a bit of cantering, and simple lead changes. On day 4 we got an introduction to "the game of contact" which was a ton of fun! I hadn't ridden Duck much in a bridle, but had her in the cradle bridle (which she loves!) for this.
A lot of people (the clinic tends to be the same group year after year) including Carol said we were looking pretty good and that we had made headway from last year, so that was nice to hear. I feel like we've accomplished quite a bit but of course not near as much as I would like!
We did so much it would be too much to list it all, but as usual Carol exceeded all my expectations and we made lots of positive progress. Duck did come up lame again on the last day, in her left knee again, so it is going to be x-rays to check it out. I am hoping it is nothing serious, and part of me wonders why it keeps showing up and this time after more than 4 days of harder work. Prior to the clinic I had trail ridden her and she had been turned out and ran pretty hard in the arena.
What is really interesting is that I used the red light treatment on it at Carol's but didn't ride after I got her home, and today she was quite zippy and seemed pretty good. That was mostly at liberty in the round pen though, so we will see how she looks on the 22ft tomorrow.
Of course the clinic was so good, I had to sign up for next year!
