Piper's first experience under saddle...

Alternate title: GET THIS THING OFF ME! These pictures were taken back in March, the very first time Piper had a saddle on her. She just didn't know WHAT to do and instead of throwing a fit like some young horses would do, she simply laid down. Pitiful!

We've come a long way since then. And I'm happy to report that last Saturday I threw a leg over her for the first time and sat in the saddle! She didn't throw a fit, try to lay down or buck me off. I was very proud of her. We're taking baby steps and things are progressing very well.
A quick reminder - Piper will be drawing the winning raffle ticket for the Cowgirl Cuff in 5 day days, on September 14th. All proceeds will go directly to Equine Voices to help the horses. If you have already purchased tickets, thank you so much! If you haven't and would like to do so, please click on the link on the left sidebar. Good luck to everyone!

Piper Under Saddle

FIRST TIME EVER! I decided it was time to start putting a saddle on Piper and getting her used to it. We have at least a year before we can actually get up on her (she has a lot of growing left to do), but this way she will be very used to it and it will be no big deal.

I used my nephew's saddle, much smaller and lighter than mine. She just let me put it right on her, with hardly a glance at it. I circled her around in the round pen at a trot and she did great -- except for a few seconds of half-hearted bucking when the saddle pad started to flop up and down ("hey, get this thing off me!"). But then she figured out it wasn't going anywhere and she stopped and turned to face me ("could you give me a hand here?") I kept it short and sweet and ended after one more walk around the round pen. She gave it a sniff or two after I took it off and that was it.

Classic Piper, not too worried about anything at all....