7/9 Saddled w/o Cinch at the end of play time.
Friday was the first day I got her cinched up and she did great. We played on the ground and warmed up, did some saddling without the cinch, just lots of on and off, letting it fall, etc. When I did cinch her up it was no big deal at all, we've done lots of girthing simulations so she was already used to that tightening feeling. She did great walking out on a circle with the saddle and eventually I asked her to move up into a trot. She got about a half a lap before bucking and leaping like a bronc. I helped her come back down and calm herself by disengaging her the best I could and yo-yo-ing her backwards from me, then resent her. We did get some good trot after that without issue, some changes of direction, and transitions. The canter definitely prompts her to buck, and hard! I let her canter a few strides and break into a trot and called it good. She was really quiet for unsaddling and didn't seem that bothered by the whole process. I'm interested to see how she does for round two and hopefully can have someone document it with photos. I need to process a bit more and hopefully will have better detail to share on this first saddling experience later!
