Today was India's third time under saddle and she made great strides, but Jenny and I both agree that she's not ready for a rider just yet. Why? Because Jenny is still spending lots of time working on India's propensity to shove with her shoulder when she doesn't like what's happening, and what she doesn't like right now is being asked to work (the pasture is so much better!) and the motion Jenny's arms make when lifting the saddle to India's back. India shoves her shoulder at Jenny. Uncool. So, Jenny spent a lot of time working on keeping India off of her and India is getting better. Really, she is, but she's not great, so Jenny and I agree that let's solve this problem first.

So, Jenny worked on India realizing what was the proper distance from the human (at least two feet, thankyouverymuch) and waved a green flag on the end of a pole near India's shoulder and India grumbled a bit, but she progressed. Interspersed in distance training and flag waving were saddle placing and removing and cinch tightening. Wisely, Jenny used her lighter weight saddle for all the ups and downs rather than the heavy roper saddle that India wore for the first two times, but the final time she reverted to the roping saddle. I've not sat in this saddle at all, but I'm falling in love with it. Why? It's not got all the fancy tooling so popular on so many saddles I've seen and its lines are pretty. It also looks good on India. (Scroll down a couple of entries for proof.) Here is a pic of a concho (I think that's what this detail is called) on this saddle.



Since I was taking a close up shot, I swiveled and took India's eye.


India wore this saddle from 11:00ish until sometime later. We left here alone in the large arena to contemplate life and I read a book (still working on Cryptonomicon, but hey, I'm 600+ pages in; only the odd 300 more to go!) and sat in a chair in the shade and took pictures of India wandering around the arena, occasionally drinking, and just thinking about how a Princess of the Universe ended up in this fix. Even POTU's get bored when thinking too many thinky thoughts. See?

I left before Jenny finished and she offered to untack India. So, the amount of saddle time she's had effectively tripled in one day. We are going to try to meet up on Tuesday to work with India again. I hope our schedules mesh, but if not, there's next weekend. Now, off to contemplate the dust bunnies in the living room. Kudzu has not availed himself of the Dyson while I was away and Rufus? Well, he hasn't emptied the dishwasher and Sparky hasn't folded the laundry like I'd asked. Worthless dogs.