1st Ride!

February 11th Joyful Imprint, or as I think I may call her "Penelope", had her first ride ever.
I have decided to blog my journey after realizing she is untrained.
At first I was certain she had riding experience, even though I knew it would have been a long time ago.

I started to tack her up but I knew it was possible she hadn't seen a saddle so I went really slow with everything. I let her look at, sniff, and touch everything. Put the saddle pad on and took it off,m on and off, more sniffing. Same with the saddle. I shook the girth around a little and let her investigate. She didn't seem to care at all. When I went to tighten the girth she didn't even flinch, no mad ears, nothing.
She let my put on the bridle without a 2nd thought, but she certainly seemed confused about the bit. So I realized maybe there was no previous training.

I took her out to the round pen and she seemed very interested in a hose off in a different field that was running around but she stood perfectly still. I tightened the girth, and again, she was not a bit concerned about me. So I grabbed a bucket and put it right up next to her. I hopped up and down, laid over her back, wiggled the saddle, then did a little dance.
Again, no worries from her. Not anything, so I hopped on. She stood perfectly still while I got on, I grabbed my reins, squeezed with my legs.... then i squeezed some more, squeezed even harder....Nothing! I hear my mom pipe in "Well looks like you've got a project"

Not what I would expect from a horse with even a tiny bit of training.
I had someone lead her around the round pen and as soon as they let go, she stopped again. I accidentally kicked her a little harder than I intended and I felt her back round up a little bit so I eased up on her.
I did get a few forward movements out of her through out the rest of our ride. I could tell she was starting to get a bit irritated with me towards the end because she was rounding her back more and comping the bit harder. So I had someone lead her around one more time before I got off. I felt that would be a good note to end on.

I'm certainly looking forward to working with her. I'm more than pleased with the fact that I was able to tack her up, get on her, and move forward without falling off. I believe it was a complete success!
She has a great mind. Very smart and tolerant.