It's saddle riding time!

Saturday after our wonderful trail ride between rain showers, we brought Diamond out of the barn and down to the round pen. I had Trainer X with me for guidance (hell who am I kidding, I was throwing her under the bus!) and her wintec saddle. I put the pad on Diamond and she took a step sideways, the pad fell down, and she ran a half circle to the other side of the round pen. Ok, that's not bad really. We walked over to her, put the pad back on, she stood still. GREAT! I gently set the saddle on her, walked around to the other side, and gently grabbed the cinch... DAMN! TOO SHORT! TX adjusted it and I grabbed it again. I got it tightened enough so that the saddle wouldn't fall before Diamond became uncomfortable and move away. She went about a quarter of the way around and stopped. We approached her again, gave her lots of pats and loves, and tightened the cinch again. When she moved off this time, I made her move around a few times. I do not want to restrict her, but she has to know the right thing is to stand without moving, and if she does move, she's going to keep on moving until I stop her. After a few circles, she was willing to stand still again and we tightened the cinch enough to hold the saddle in place under our weight. TX took the leap of faith and stuck her foot in the stirrup, hopped up and down a few times, Diamond pinned her ears back, she was not sure about this new behavior, but she wasn’t going to run circles again, so even though her ears told us she wasn’t excited about this, she stood still trusting us to not hurt her. I sent hubby to the barn for treats and when he came back, we told him to mount. He did, and she did GREAT! We lead them around the round pen for a couple of circles, tied the lead rope to her halter, and let him guide her. She did perfect - Like she’s been doing this her whole life. Turned, stopped, everything without so much as a buck or head toss. We all were on cloud nine – this couldn’t have gone much smoother. TX – she didn’t get any new bumps or bruises, Hubby – has broke his first horse, and me – well I’m just excited to have found this little Diamond in the rough, and to know that she trusts us completely. This week, we’ll bit her up and start teaching her to give to the bit.