The South Dakota Cowgirl

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The Colt Cam Chronicle

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This week as I rode, I realized a couple things:

1. despite my work at becoming more ambidextrous I’m still very right side dominant.
2. which means that it matters not which horse I ride, I really get in their way when it comes to them getting the right lead. And by the right lead, I mean the right lead, not the correct lead.

I’ve always go the horse set up to go left – except in the case of Fridge, but that’s just because I haven’t screwed that up yet! I realize this is simply a matter of a fixing a couple things:

1. My timing with the left hind foot is off.
2. Because I am right handed, I probably do more bending the horse to the right than the left, which in turn, makes his hip freer going to the left than going to the right. Which makes for an out-of-balance-not-so-straight-horse.

I am going to add riding one or two of Zach’s good horses to my weekly calendar for a couple reasons:

1. The more horses you ride the better you get.
2. His horses are significantly better at moving their hips than mine. He’s been riding longer than me, and he’s been riding “this” way longer than me and he’s not as greedy as me when it comes to teaching the horse what we want them to learn. He’s constantly thinking about where the foot is in relation to when he may want to ask. And that makes his timing damn good. I will get there too!

The more I learn and grow, the more I see that “feel, timing, and balance”, play a huge roll in how well our horses ride. With Dino I made a horse that is very soft in the face, but he’s out balance to the “gathered up” side of things and has trouble moving out with any conviction. With Fridge, I can get on him and go, but he’s not as soft in his face at 25 rides as Dino was at 25 rides. Dolce (who I haven’t been on in a year) is the same as Fridge – not as soft with her 45 rides, but can sure get where I want her to go). As I continue to work on the above, the horses I start and ride will continue to get softer because I’m learning to ride each foot and my timing will improve with each foot (hopefully).

I’m also going to head over to our ranch blog, and watch this video again, and again, and again…

And now that we have three colons and lots of 1-2 lists out of the way, here’s a quick video from this week’s colt cam!

I used Fridge this week to flag another colt (Nutter Butter, Fridge’s Paternal Uncle). He’s getting handy, folks!

Happy trails and Happy Friday!

About ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

Jenn Zeller is the creative mind and boss lady behind The South Dakota Cowgirl. She is an aspiring horsewoman, photographer, brilliant social media strategist and lover of all things western.

After a brief career in the investment world to support her horse habit (and satisfy her mother, who told her she had to have a “real” job after graduating college), she finally took the leap and stepped away from a regular income; trading the business suit once and for all for cowgirl boots, a hat, and jeans. She has not looked back.

When Jenn first moved to The DX Ranch on the South Dakota plains, she never imagined she’d find herself behind a camera lens capturing an authentic perspective of ranching, and sharing it with others. Jenn has always been called to artistry, and uses music, writing, images, home improvement, and her first true love of horses to express her ranching passion.

Horses are the constant thread and much of her work centers around using her unique style of writing to share her horsemanship journey with others in publications such as CavvySavvy, the AQHA Ranching Blog, the West River Eagle, the family ranch website, and her own website.

Using photography to illustrate her stories has created other opportunities -- Jenn’s brand “The South Dakota Cowgirl” has grown to the level of social media “Influencer”. This notoriety has led to work with Duluth Trading Company, Budweiser, Wyoming Tourism, Vice, Circle Z Ranch and Art of the Cowgirl, to name a few. She also serves as a brand ambassador for Woodchuck USA, Arenus Equine Health, Triple Crown Feed and Just Strong fitness apparel. Her photography has been featured by Instagram, Apple, TIME Magazine, The Huffington Post, and Oprah Magazine. Jenn’s work has been published internationally, has been seen in several books and has graced the covers of several magazines.

Jenn became a social media influencer by accident when she started to explore Instagram as a way to share her life on the ranch with folks that don’t get to experience it. It’s grown into an incredible platform that she uses to empower women, create an environment for self improvement and share life on the ranch.

When she’s not working, she loves to drink coffee, play with her naughty border collie named Copper, start ranch colts, and run about the country chasing cans. Her mother still thinks she doesn’t have a “real” job.

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