Moving Shenanigans & Settling In

Shenanigans > (greater than) Settling into new paddocks. That about says it all doesn’t it?
Sunday morning, out in the paddock…

- “Rawh! My treatz!” says Copper to Robbie, his best bud -

- “Oh-tay, we iz fwends agin… Wut you mean – Buh Beye? I dunna get it…” -

- “Oh, dis wut you mean… One of dese homen-beanz horse gobbling fingz.” -

- “Srsly – agin with de clicky fing? No… Won’t smile… Wanna eat.” -

- “Weh you goin’? …Mom! …Mom!! DON”T LEAVE ME!!! I DON’T NOE ANYONEZ HERH!!” -

- “Told ya not to go…. *insert smirk*” -

- “I didn’t noes fencez bit! Honest!” -

- “Hai… I iz glad you here…” -

- *omnomnomnom* -

So long story - everything was going really smoothly with our move...  Turns out, it didn’t quite stay that way!!  :O

We started by picking up the hire float, then fetching Copper in from the paddock.

I prepped him for travel with float boots and plaiting up his tail. Copper walked up the ramp, stopped – had a sniff and a look, then marched right on.

I was so relieved… I didn’t expect any trouble, I know he’s been well trained with floats being an ex-racer off the track, but counting it up – Copper hasn’t been out on a float in over four years!  So I was kind of wondering if he’d be easy or a bit tricky.

We got over to our new home in 45 minutes or so – and he travelled really well, no clopping or clattering around – just eating from his hay net.  I should take him out more often…  :P

He unloaded fine, we walked around and explored; said hello to new pony faces over the fences, and then walked every inch of his new boundary fences.  *phew!* That took a while – and less than half way through he was all: “Can we stahp? Bored now… I want munchies!”

Copper was looking fairly settled - still a bit stressed and anxious, but he wasn't pacing or anything. He was eating, drinking, pooping and peeing - very normal horse behaviour, so I went home to fetch a hose and come back to fill up his trough.


In the hour or so that I was gone the dingbat ran through a border fence between paddocks and ended up in the neighbour's paddock!!



He was okay, but had to be rescued by the neighbour. He ended up with some abrasions on the front of his hind cannons - right on the front/under his hocks.

There was also a minor cut that was a bit deep, it had a skin flap that I gently pulled back and flushed with a ton of betadine!

I bandaged the cut, I was hoping that would hold the skin flap on so it would reattach, but the bandage slipped down in the night and the skin flap was half attached, and half dried up when I came back out the next morning.  

I fully expected to see swelling and lameness, but he was actually pretty good. So I guess it’s all’s well that ends well – for that kind of incident it could have been a lot worse.

If it teaches him to respect the fence though, I guess that's good, because seriously horse!



Such a silly boy...

But he is all "Don't leave me!!" when I go down, so I do feel sorry for him.



He's uncharacteristically clingy...

He is fretting a bit, and won't go into the actual paddock to eat. He's just staying the lane way down the front which isn’t very large, and doesn’t have much grass at all.

I mean, it's not like he couldn't stand to lose a few (Let’s be real here - a lot!) kilos, but I don't want him to colic.

I have been visiting him twice a day – once in the morning, and once in the evening for the last three days; Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning, this happened:

Yep, first ride in new place… 

There’s not much to say about it, except he was a lot more rideable than what I’d been expecting!

With a little lunge (when he was trotting he exhaled the giant breath he’d been holding… Lol) and some lateral work at a walk, he was listening and felt quite relaxed when I hopped off 20 minutes later!

I was stoked – I feel like the work we’ve be doing towards learning how to relax even in tense moments has really been sinking in! He had all his marbles, but he was nice and forward – I was thinking that this would be a great competition frame of mind. ;)

It’s all groovy baby. 

See ya,
bonita

All the Excitement!!

I seriously can’t believe how great the rides Copper and I have had recently have been.

I’ve been riding around the arena with the biggest, goofiest grin on my face – I’d look like a madcap to anyone watching, but we are all by ourselves so…  

It started two weeks or so ago – I can’t really remember how many rides I’ve done since the last update, but it’s been a few. I’ve ridden during the week (we’re hiring a babysitter every Wednesday so I can ride – yay!) and the weekend, so we are actually clocking up some decent saddle time.

And to make it even better, we’ve had a ton of new AHA! moments – three to be exact!

All this excitement makes for an uber long post – so here’s the TLDR:

1. Your shoulders influence your horse’s shoulders. Keep them dropped down and back, and don’t forget to turn them from your tummy when when you are bending. 
2. Your belly button is important. Think relaxed, loose back, and supported/pulled in core. Draw your belly button back and up towards your spin to active your core and allow your horse to step more deeply underneath himself.
3. The canter aid can be confusing, but you need to use your inside hip AND your outside leg to signal the aid correctly.

 

Copper’s really struggled with circles for a while, maintaining the bend from nose, through his rib cage, to his tail.  He’d lose it through his shoulders a lot – particularly on the left rein – and I thought it might have been because he wasn’t strong enough to hold it. 

Turns out, not so much – it was me! 

One ride we were gong around on the left rein and it just clicked with me that my right shoulder was hunched up and forwards – really quite tense.  Now whether that has something to do with the fact that my right ankle was twisted a while ago and my body is still trying to protect it, or that my right ankle doesn’t stretch and flex to let my heel down as far as the left one – I’m not sure.  The point is: I was unbalanced, and that had come up through my seat into my shoulder. 

As soon as I felt that, I dropped my shoulder down and back and it was like I had poked a finger in the middle of Copper’s whither and unravelled a huge knot! 

He was twisting himself up, trying to bend the way I was insisting that he should, all the while I was all crooked – blocking his shoulders from moving freely.

I started playing with my shoulders, keeping them dropped and back when I was turning, swivelling them from my tummy – and wow! A fun new button to play with!  Copper is so much more responsive through turns, and I can really feel that connection like I couldn’t before – his shoulder mirror my shoulders and vice versa.  It was a real eye opening moment for sure. Especially when I can turn him without using my reins at all - as in, he’s on a completely looped rein, and we are doing half volte turns!

We’ve actually managed to get a few steps of a true shoulder-in because of this AHA moment.  We are working on it – it’s still quite hard for Copper, but he gets it!  So that’s been really fun too.

Then the next button I discovered was my belly button.  No joke.  :P

Okay, so I knew it always existed, but then I found out that it can influence your horse’s back and belly too!

I tried a core activation trick I had learned in Pilates – relax your back entirely, including the small of your back and your glutes.  Then, slowly draw your belly button back towards your spine and slightly up, almost like a string is pulling at the front of your pelvis.

This “tucks” the front of your core, activating it.  Funnily enough, it has the same effect on your horse!

When I did this, I felt Copper instantly lift his back and engage his abs, and not only that, step further underneath himself. It was like lifting a dam gate and the power just flowed from his hind quarters through his back, neck and then into my hands.

It was an incredible sensation – not one we could hold on to for very long unfortunately – neither of us are toned/fit enough to keep our cores so active for any length of time yet. I’ll definitely keep visiting this one often though, it’s excellent toning for the both of us.

Last but not least - a canter aid breakthrough! 

So recently I read (on the Facebook Dressage group I’m apart of) a question about the canter aid.  It basically ran along the lines of “What’s the correct aid for canter? Outside leg or inside leg?”

The answers where many and varied, but it got me thinking.  It seemed to me that using the outside leg to ask for canter was less than desirable, as some people mentioned it could cause crookedness.  But it also seemed that a LOT of people also mentioned that they’d been taught the outside leg transition technique in multiple different times and places from many different instructors.

Basically, it’s one of those tricky ones where there’s a lot of conflicting information.  I’ve personally always gone for the inside aid – lifting and scoping the inside hip – what I considered the ‘correct’ classical way to give the aid.

This has worked really well for me in the past – particularly on Copper’s good side – his right lead.  He will just lift and pop into the canter if he is balanced well to begin with.

This is not the case with his left rein – I’ve really had a lot of struggle getting him to canter properly on this rein.  He will literally run himself into the ground to pick up the left lead canter. It’s so messy that motorcycles have nothing on him!  It’s also impossible to bring this canter back into balance, so obviously it’s all kinds of wrong. 

I couldn’t figure out how to fix this canter depart. I toyed with the idea of ground poles or trying to train him to walk-canter depart which I’ve read can be easier for the horse to pick up, but really I wasn’t sure if these ideas were the best…

Spoiler: walk-canter depart when the rider doesn’t know how to ride a walk-canter depart, let alone train one, doesn’t work. I tried and we failed miserably, so I didn’t push it at all.

On a whim, I decided to try the outside leg ask with Copper today.  OH.  So THAT’S how he’s been trained to pick up canter!  It was not as neat as the inside hip scoop, but that doesn’t surprise me in the least.  Those canter transitions only happen when he is super balanced, on the aids, soft through his back and listening.

…So the inside hip scoop aid is something I have to work towards –not something I have right now.

This is a BIG game changer….

I was thrilled at how easy the canter transition was. It can be so hard to get him to canter if everything’s not already perfect, and he had been rush-y and spooky our whole ride.  When he’s like that a canter transition is a disaster – no matter which rein you are on. It’s like picking between an earthquake or a tsunami.  Six of one, half a dozen of the other and completely catastrophic!  So we literally never canter unless the ‘conditions’ of horse’s mood, schooling session, and weather are all in order.

This canter aid felt so ‘right’ for us, however, that I even switched reins and put the game face on to try it on the left rein.  AND IT WORKED!!  I was so shocked, but we got it without any scrambling and held it!  Of course, he was still leaning in a little, but it wasn’t too bad and I influenced him into balance with my seat. 

Then I was all “Is he really on the left lead??”  (That’s how rarely we canter this lead – I couldn’t even tell… (>_>)”…)   So I went to change rein and he freakin’ did a freakin’ flying change!!  A full-on bouncy, complete with back legs, freakin’ flying change!!  We even had, like, a whole right lead canter stride after it before we fell apart like a hot mess!!!! 

Of course I praised him like mad, because even though that was not what I was expecting and I was so not ready for it, he did it cleanly, and he was trying really hard to do the right thing for me.  *squeee*   I even have that little bubble of joy and pride welling up in my chest as I think about it.

My horse is a champ.

- I iz champine! -

AND THEN (if you are not already dying at the length of this post already!) we went on to do some awesome trot work!  His stride was really free and relaxed, his back was up and soft and we had some great walk-trot and trot-walk transitions off my seat. 

I was really impressed by this because he’s usually so worked up after cantering that it’s really hard to get him back into a ‘soft’ frame of mind for any trot work. He is usually all “WHHHEEEE!! I wants to rhun forevah naow!!!”

And noted, he still did have that, but the fact that I was able to get him to find his marbles (brain) again was pretty dang cool.  That’s also something we’ve been really struggling with  - also adding very much to my reluctance to canter, because once we did I felt like the chance for any quality work afterwards would fly out the window and we’d be struggling to regain rhythm and relaxation for the rest of the ride.

Not so anymore!  We are FINALLY at the stage where I feel we can start working on the canter and not just the walk/trot. 

It’s only taken – oh, about a year….  Wait, nope – a lot longer than that!  Ever since I first started riding Copper I’ve been waiting to get to the stage where we could finally work on his canter!  And that would be over ten years now…  However, since I seriously started to pull apart my riding and try and figure out how my seat/body influenced Copper – that’s been about a year, and now I feel like that’s the point when I really started to ride.

The rest of the time – that’s just been sitting on top of a horse.

I can’t tell you how epic it feels to finally reach this stage I’ve been waiting for.  It’s like sunshine and cotton candy, and all the stars in the night sky wrapped up inside of me, waiting to burst out. 

It took a long time to get here, and I know there are mountains more to conquer, but right now I’m so thrilled that we’ve got so far.  Copper’s not a dressage horse, but we are riding dressage together anyway, and it’s a good thing. 

See ya,

bonita

P.S. – Jane Savoie breaks the canter aid down in the beginning of this video, and really it’s both – inside seat bone/leg AND the outside leg.  I guess in the end it’s really about how you look at it, and what clicks for your head.

Saturday Post-ride Dissection

Circles are our new best friend and worst enemy. Yup, a geometric figure is my frenemy. Mostly because when we get it right, I really can feel the suppling and impulsion benefit to Copper on the straight, and mostly because when we get it wrong – it’s oh, so very wrong…

I’m struggling with that left rein circle - I do know how to fix it (close the outside aids, and ask for outside hind to actively come forwards and help carry weight) but it’s not an easy fix. All that wonderful lateral work to supple him is also wonderful for showing Copper exactly how to evade and escape from working properly!  *sigh*

You would think that the horse would consider bending and sideways harder than bending and forwards, but nope.  :/

Still, he is feeling better and better these days, and I’m starting to consistently find relaxed and rhythmical working trot from him. I even tested it a few times today by releasing both reins forwards, and he was keeping the same pace. So that’s been super exciting and really rewarding.

We also did a leg yield from center line to outside track! There is nothing that makes you feel cooler than a super fancy prancy horse daintily tracking diagonally across the arena(Left to right, fabulous – right to left, needs some work).  Half pass here we come! Lol – yeah right.  :P

His canter transitions are also getting better – I think being able to balance properly on a circle is also helping him to get his hind underneath for a quiet transition. Thus, it stands to reason that his left canter lead is way more explosive and messy than his right at the moment – I think I really need to focus on some left rein work and try to get him stronger and more supple on the left side.

I try to work both sides evenly every ride, but I think for a short while I should almost be working the left side exclusively during the main schooling portion of our ride to really build him up.  Of course, we’ll warm up and cool down on both reins, but I’m going to stop spending so long on the right, and just get *right* back to the left for a while – sort of like a left rein boot camp for the both of us!

Here’s some more schooling footage from today if you are interested:

And yes, this is now a thing. Because honestly, just working on my hands and shortening my stirrups alone have already made such a difference to Copper; I swear he looks twice as nice as he did last Saturday, and my position looks a ton better as well.

My leg still needs work, but I’m almost thinking I might need a dressage saddle. Or maybe it looks worse than it is because Copper’s so round? I don’t know. One moment I think “Yeah, my leg is right underneath me and inline with my shoulder and hip. It must be alright then.” and then I’m all “Ugh, I don’t think it IS underneath me! I look like I’m in a chair seat again!”

So I’m vacillating between good and bad and don’t know if I should be trying to push it back even further. I hesitate because I don’t want end up to pitching myself onto the fork of my pelvis. Oh, well, I’ll try it out next ride and see what happens I guess.

See ya,

bonita

One more ride

 
At the moment we are on an “Once a week” ride schedule. And yes, it sucks.  Ugh. I’ll try not to complain, at least I get to ride.

So this week: I went shopping!  Yay!

Actually, it was important. I had to pick up a breastplate because last time I rode Copper, his cantering was really wild and unbalanced, and the saddle decided to relocate several inches over to the side. Thankfully, he was still sensible enough to stop when I asked him too.

He is so round and I can’t really tighten his girth much more, as he has pectoral scarring from old tears, so the only solution I could think of was a breastplate.

When I walked into Horseland, they were having a sale. Uh-oh!  Lol.  I end up buying him a Stockman’s breastplate, a navy Roma saddle pad with red & white trim (all the matching fhansay! *dies*) and a navy Dublin winter polo and navy fleece jumper for myself. Yup. Our color is navy.

- Plain, very serviceable, but suits the both of us quite well -

Anyway, enough distractions of all the shiny - on to the ride!

His walk was a bit restricted, I think he was feeling the interference of the breastplate in the forward reach of his shoulders, but I hope we can work past that. And his leg yields are getting pretty snappy!

His trot was mostly feeling good. Really swinging from my hips, and focusing on keeping my shoulders back and soft seems to be helping a lot. It’s like we’ve found the gate for the road to good trot work and now all we have to do is walk down it! (Ha! That sounds so simple, but I know it isn’t…)

As we worked I felt like we had some good moments of connection, but honestly – I don’t really know for sure. I am positively dying to get some video footage to see what’s really going on, but that seems to be another impossible at the moment. Ugh. Frustration again, but I have just deal.

His cantering was still wild and crazy. It seems like he’s forgotten everything he knows about cantering and is back to his hooning, *I’m a motorcycle!* impersonation days.

Take away: The breastplate did help and the saddle didn’t slip as badly. In fact, I think it would be just fine if he wasn’t running around like a ninny! I still want to look into a new contoured girth to see if that helps as well. It also might help him relax through his shoulders more which is always a good thing for an ex-trotter. 

He needs to activate his inside hind leg so that he can bring it further under him while cantering and balance properly. That means spiral in & out circles at a trot. And I’m slowly working at bringing in leg yields at a trot.

Currently he flips out and bolts off every time I shift my legs back to ask for the yield, so I’m all like - maybe I should try just asking with my seat first? *face palm* He probably does not need a leg aid at all. But we’ll see if I’m right!

And it’s time to school canter transitions. In the past he has struck off fairly nicely, but at the moment there’s a lot of leaping and flailing around which is not helping with the controlled balanced canter issue.

I am also hoping that practicing transitions will get him off the forehand enough to re-establish that crucial balance needed for nice cantering.

So there’s all that.

If only I could get down sometimes during the week - that would help too. Yes, I am feeling a little despondent about the complete lacking of riding time I seem to have. I positively hate being a weekend rider. It’s hard on me, but worse, it’s harder on Copper. I can’t really expect him to improve without putting in the time. And I really want to be able to do that… *sigh*

While I don’t have the answer yet on how to get those rides in, I am working on it, and I guess that’s the best I can do for now.

See ya,

bonita

2014 – New Beginnings

Well, I don’t know what happened to the last year, but I suppose that comes of having a baby.  Our second child was born in April, so what with the first six months of new-baby-zombie-brain, I guess that accounts for most of the year!

Then Joey bucked me off, I broke my elbow, decided to sell him, rode him around with said broken elbow, sold him and started discovering fun things with Copper, like I needed a new saddle. Bought a Wintec 500 All Purpose saddle, had some great rides, (lateral work for the win! Shoulder fore, shoulder-in, leg yields and turns-on-the-forehand have been a regular part of our schooling routines recently, and for good reason, as they really unlock my ex-trotter, softening and suppling him up) and some terrible ones – in which we learn never to try and tire out a Standardbred. Don’t try this at home kids. Just don’t.

So with 2014 shaping up to be a quiet year on the equestrian front – I think I’ll pop down some goals to work towards, but they will be very prosaic I’m afraid.

Copper:

- Find his relaxed trot, and make it consistent. That’s a hard ask, but it is in there somewhere, so this is my foremost goal. He must learn to relax while he trots.

- Do some jumping. As previously mentioned, we haven’t done this in ages, but I really want to do some with him again.

- Maybe go to a dressage show??? I don’t have access to a float anymore, and unless we put electronic brakes in our car before the end of the year, I don’t really see this one happening, but I can try nonetheless.

Me:

- Work on developing my seat; primarily focusing on allowing Copper’s back to soften, and his energy to flow over his back from his hindquarters.

- Keep my hands up and elbows bent! I am a shocker for dropping my hands and locking my elbows, it’s my worst habit.  I have been working on this, but I really need to concentrate on eradicating this dreadful form.

- Never, ever, resort to a battle. When something isn’t working, change your approach! Every once in a while I forget this, and that’s when we have our shockers. I need to stop, take stock and change tack if it’s not working, rather than figuring out the solutions when I’m off the horse and it’s too late to help with that particular ride.  Sure, it’s good for the rides following, but I’d rather not leave it that late if I can help it.

 

So that’s me.  I want to try a get more videos of my riding this year to help critique and improve my equitation, but that’s a bit hard, so we’ll have to see how we go.

What are you planning for the new year?

See ya,

bonita

Training Tip: Riding bareback

So Joey’s being doing really well with the spotty and completely infrequent riding schedule we have at the moment.  It’s great because I wasn’t really sure that he had the temperament for that kind of riding, but he does. 

Of course, we don’t really get any where fast and he gets totally lazy, but we are improving a little bit at a time I think.

I have even ridden him bareback for the first time!  I wasn’t sure that he’d be ok with bareback riding, but he was really good.

It took a bit of time and patience to get him standing along side the fence long enough for me to hop on, but he is a quick learner and the next day when I did it again, it was much faster. 

I trained him to stand up for mounting by leading him in close to the fence and getting him to stand right next to it.  I would be on his right side as I  maneuvered him into the right position, then after I halted him, I would go around to his left and slowly hop up on the fence. 

I rubbed his back, and croup (the point over his hips between his back and his quarters) reach over and rub his opposite side.  If he was happy with that, I leant over his back a little bit and when I thought he was ready I’d put my leg over.  If the fence isn’t high enough to do that, I’d jump and lean over his back on my stomach, then swing my leg up and over.

If Joey moved forwards before I hopped on, I’d back him up and then take him around and line him up again.  If he’d swing his hind quarters away, I’d push them over again, and then take him around and line him up again. 

Putting him back in the place I wanted him to be is an important step before lining him up alongside the fence again because I want him to realize that moving forwards or sidewise isn’t going to get him away from the spot I want him to stand.  I also do this if he tries to move away while saddling or bridling him, and it’s a great training tool under saddle if he won’t stand still.

He is a bit nervous when I’m riding him bareback, but he listens to me – for the most part!  He did decided to see if he could try it out and refuse to walk on and away from all his mates in the paddock, but I soon squashed that idea.  Thankfully where I’ve been doing the bareback riding really is an ideal area to try it out in.

Basically the herd is in a big paddock up the back of another paddock that is next to two other big paddocks.  There is a narrow laneway that runs down the middle – it has a paddock on either side.  This laneway allows you to get access to the paddocks up the back. 

It’s a five to ten minute walk to get down there, so it’s a nice stretch of enclosed area that has lots of soft, squishy grass for emergency dismounts! I walk down, fetch Joey out of the paddock (I bridle him rather than riding in a halter – I don’t want to lose all control thankyouverymuch!) and ride him back down the laneway.

Oh, and I definitely wear my helmet! 

I am really happy though, because I think that we are making progress and building trust by experiencing different situations and scenarios together - like bareback riding.  I wouldn’t be surprised if I’ll be able to take him out on solo trail rides soon, which is a huge step from where we were when I first got him!

Next up: taking him out in the trail and getting him used to competition atmosphere. 

See ya,

bonita

He’s no angel…

 

But at least he’s not trying to kill me any more! 

I have been surprised and impressed with how well Joey’s been doing lately - perhaps it’s just that young horses take that much more time to really settle into a new place, or maybe that he’s finally decided that I’m not such a bad egg after all.

Either way, I’m seeing an improvement in Joey that I am very much liking at the moment.  He’s a lot calmer, and far more relaxed about things.

We’re seeing less of the bad attitude, and more habitual silliness now – like jogging when he’s fresh, spooking at the barrels for no good reason, or if he gets bored he’ll spook at nothing.  Plus, he’s a bit on the lazy side, so if you push him too hard he’ll buck and be jig around and be generally stupid.

I find that he really does need to be ridden at every moment your on his back, because if his mind is not engaged he’ll get into mischief and if you loose focus for one second, he looses his focus too!  I am discovering that this is the hard slog of riding a young horse; not that they are necessarily worse to ride then an older horse, but rather that they require that much more work under saddle.  You can’t ever switch off and leave it to the horse because they don’t understand that kind of partnership yet.  You must always be leading them – directing them and making the choices.

It’s exhausting mentally and physically, but it’s worth it when you realise that you’re making progress.  And we are! 

Currently we are working on forwards, (ie, legs, legs, legs), lowering his frame to bring him on the bit and prepare for the first stages of collection, and canter. 

I have cantered him a couple of times now and he’s been really good – no antics, just a nice medium canter, if a little unbalanced.  Joey really can be quite sensible at times which is nice!  Anyway, I must be off to ride my horse. 

See ya!

bonita

Three Things

I haven’t been doing much with Joey due to the rainy weather, however there are three things that happened over the last few times I visited him.  I was pleased about them, so here they are.

• Lounging:  I went and lounged him yesterday as the ground had finally dried out.  He was just in a rope halter with a line, and he did really well!  Yes, he had excess energy, and yes, he still cuts in on the left lead {I’m trying to fix it, but it’s proving difficult} but when I was watching him trot and canter around I couldn’t help but remember the first time I ever lounged him.  
  
  He was hopeless! He pulled and yanked on the lounge line, even though it was clipped under his chin to his bridle, wouldn’t obey my voice commands, tried to bolt off and circle?  What’s that?  It was more like, um, random squiggles.  Yesterday?  Reasonably soft, willing, listening and engaged in nothing more than a rope halter, plus, actual circles!  He really has improved!
  

• Trot poles:  We did them on the lounge line quietly, and even kicked it up a notch by raising the end pole up on tires.  To be sure, that blew his mind a bit, particularly when the pole MOVED if he kicked it.  Still, we walked over them all calmly with nose stretching in the end and didn’t even freak out when I picked the pole up after he knocked it down several times.  Methinks he is learning.  Yay!  Break through!
  

• Trust:  This is the biggest one, but two things have happened that make me think he is learning to trust me more.  One, the other day I led him into the pen that has sails stretched over it with out a single bit of hesitation.  Sure, he did boggle a bit when he realized where he was and he had to have a good sniff around, but that was it.  I couldn’t even lead him near the gate of that yard when he first arrived at the paddocks.
  
  Secondly, he freaked out yesterday when my dad went to try a new saddle on him – mostly because he had eaten his dinner and didn’t want that thing near him.  It wasn’t good that he did that, we really need to work on his attitude towards saddling.  But what was good was that even when he was ‘trapped’, stuck between the fence and the saddle – he still responded to me.  I could see him thinking about charging past me and trying to get away; very dangerous because he would have basically pushed right ‘through’ me.  But I blocked him with my shoulder and told him to stand and I could see him listening.  He didn’t like it, but he did listen.  I got my dad to back off a bit then, and I hope it was enough of a release that we put the saddle on and then basically took it off again. 
  

Small events, but good ones none the less I think!  Now if only I wasn’t so scared to ride him.  *sigh*  One step at a time I guess.

See ya,

bonita