Joey Day 21

Today we went a little slower. I got him saddled, bug sprayed went over a few reminder lessons and then lunged him for transition work. He does well at them. I worked alot on desensitizing to the crack of a whip and rustling of a bad with cans in it. He took that well. We did some leg yielding and side passing on the rail. I flipped the 22' lead over his back and down around his legs so that I could turn him around, see if he has any problems with rope on his hocks. He didn't so then it was time to ground drive him. It was like he was an old pro. He was soft and not frazzled at all with me walking behind him as many horses are for the first time. He yielded softly to the rein and stopped soft, and backed up for me. He turned real nice so after several trips around the round pen we quit that exercise. I then got on and rode around abit working for softness and did some shoulders over and disengagements. Then I picked up my whip and began to desensitize him to something following him or rubbing against him while riding. He got a little scared and wanted to really move out, so I let him and just directed his feet and kept the whip with its long tail trailing us on the ground. When he relaxed a bit I was whirring it over head letting it slap the ground and rub on his hips and around his feet. Like I said, he was scared but he handled it and when we were done I was cracking it around him and swinging it like a rope.  By this time we were almost out of time so I wanted to let him relax with no pressure so I put the whip down and just loped him around and transitioned to trot and walk and stop, backup, turn the shoulders and move off. We did this a couple times and then I flexed him at a standstill several times and quit.
Then I got Raven out. I haven't worked with her but one time since Joey arrived so I was blessed with the opportunity to brush up on some things. I worked her about 45 minutes. She was a bit rusty, but nothing a little fine tuning can't take care of. I hope to ride her again tomorrow.
Adeiu.