Thursday, October 15, 2009

Domino 9

I had a little trouble catching him in the pen to begin with. He still had not really hooked on to me yet. So when I did get him haltered and in the round pen, I got him saddled. This time I used the rear cinch, which sometimes makes a horse buck. But this didn't seem to bother him. Then I worked him a little with lunging and backup, etc. to see what he would do. After he didn't explode I took the halter off and let him go. Then we got to work on transitions walk trot canter and back down. He did pretty good and is getting better. I looked for the signs of submission in him and when he began to show some, like lowering his head, an ear toward me then I pushed his butt away and drew his eye toward me and let him rest. I worked on changing directions with inside and outside turns then again pushed his butt and drew his eye toward me and let him rest. I then began to draw him towards me and lo and behold his front end broke loose and he followed me. I did this one more time to make sure he was following.
Next I backed him out of the arena and we went for a walk down the road while I did the c pattern exercise, backup, leg yields and just plain stood and rested. I wanted to see how he reacts to traffic and new things on the road. He did a good job. We probably worked on that for 15 minutes then went back in the round pen. This time I rode him for most of the rest of the time we had. I got him going into his gait, and boy does he have a smooth one. I can see why people like a TW. My own TW doesn't have this smooth of a gait. Anyway, I worked on one rein stop and disengagement. He is a bit stiff on lateral flexion from the saddle. From the ground he is soft, but it is different for the horse from the saddle. So we worked on that every chance I got. Then after about 20 minutes or so, I got off and worked more on desensitizing. I popped the whip and he stood fine, also the flagging stick no problem. I even got my blue tarp out and he handled that good. Finally, I worked on sending him over it and in short order he was doing that. In the next session I plan to introduce the bit and ride a lot more even go on the road and do some exercises from the ground. We will see what he does.
That's all for yesterdays workout.

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