I had to wait until the wind was blowing like crazy!
I wasn't procrastinating. Honest! Ranger's owner lives about 2 hours away. She had requested video of his progress. Ranger's been here about a week now, so I thought it would be a good day to attempt to get some video.
I went to get the camera. Both SDHC cards were maxed out. Since my videographers were all at school or work, I knew I would be setting the camera up on the ledge, turning it on, and crossing my fingers for some good cuts. I would need a lot of card memory. I wasted the next two hours reviewing, uploading, and deleting nearly a year's worth of footage of kids and horses. By the time I finished, the storm front was tearing through.
I took a second to confirm through Google that I should have at least an hour of video memory on my now empty card and headed out the door with new batteries in my camera. The batteries lasted 17 stinking minutes.
All I got were warm up exercises and a review of a few things I already taught. And even those weren't all that great. The wind was gusting 39 mph and snapping the plastic over the south door, so Ranger was a little more jumpy than I would have liked.
I was bummed. We never got to the really good stuff. I put the bit and saddle on Ranger today and didn't even get footage of it!
He did pretty well with the saddle. He crow hopped a couple times when he first loped, but then he went over and started munching on hay. Other than turning to bite at the saddle a few times, he seemed pretty mellow about having it on.
Oh well, here's a photo. The first time I put a saddle or bridle on a horse, I typically work the horse for a while and then turn him loose in a safe area. The saddle and bridle are left on for most of the rest of the day so that the horse has plenty of time to get accustomed to them.
T., here's some video footage of Ranger. I edited out most of the repetitions, blank shots and garbage. The resulting video is down to about six and a half minutes. I will post a list of all the exercises I've taught him thus far. Hopefully I can get that up tomorrow.
Enjoy!