Joey Days 16,17

I finally have a chance to sit down and type this out. Yesterday, I worked with Joey in the early a.m., I'll tell you why in a minute. Anway, we briefly went through our warmup and then started working under saddle. My goal was to get him following his nose better in the yard and on the road. In the rd pen, it's round so it is kinda deceptive to work on it only there. So we went out in the yard and down the road. I'll tell you for 45 minutes or so we worked on this. He was a little better going to the right than he was but still has a long ways to go. But his backup, shoulders over, disengagement and forward are doing pretty good for day 16. As soon as I put him up and had the horses fed I had to take off for Twin Lakes to help My horsemanship instructor put on a horsemanship clinic for some 'Quest' kids from Paradise Ranch. It was ten teens whko are learning servant leadership in the horsemanship side of the camp. They had to plan everything out including the agenda and what times they wanted us to teach them. So from about 1pm to 5 we taught backup, disengagement and shoulders over in ground school. We had to split the kids up because they only had 5 horses to use so Jaime taught the first five and then while I took the second five he took the first group and taught them some roping tips. Then he did the same with the second group. After dinner until about 9pm we were under saddle putting the 3 ground school lessons to work horseback. Then this morning was review horseback from about 8:30 and then the cows were brought in and the kids had a chance to cut and sort cows in their two groups. It as a blast. I was in the saddle from 8:30 until noon this morning. After lunch there was some debriefing time for the kids and their leaders. I had the benefit of riding Joker yesterday, a cadillac of horses with all the bells and whistles, dead broke. Today I rode Barbie, a blonde tall qtr horse, 4 years old that is green, but has 45 days from Jaime and has only been ridden twice since February and one of those times was yesterday. She was quite hot at first, but settled right down. Jaime has put a nice handle on her. She will make a real nice horse.
Enough of that. When I got back and unloaded, my stuff, I had to get hay and get that unloaded. Then I tacked up Joey and rode him this evening. I worked him on the ground for about ten minutes and then we got under saddle. At first, he was real dull on going following his nose, but by the time we ended he was bridling up and getting better at following his nose. So how did we get there?
Well, the first thing I did was start moving him in a circle and when he didn't follow his nose I had to make him by disengaging and then moving his shoulders in the right direction and releasing when I felt the shoulders move over. We did a lot of serpentines up and down the road and between the trees. He gave me a great deal of trouble going down the road but we made it the 1/2 mile and rested at the intersection. Then we calmly walked back to the yard and then I worked his butt off making him canter on a circle, of which he didn't want to follow so we had to work through that in the same manner as above. Then I started down the road again with a loose rein and guess what? He was relaxed walking down the road. On the way back I went easy on him and then back in the yard we went to work again. I really had to get after him, sorry kathryn, on the disengaging 'cause he wasn't getting off my leg. I'll tell you what though, when I was done he was bridling up nice and doing much better at following his nose. If I can disengage him, move his shoulders over and back him up I can sure get him to be arched on a circle with the same bend as the circle. He is not there yet, but he will get there. And cantering doesn't seem to be a problem for him except in the left lead. I am not sure why. So there you have it. Two days in Joey's training. One more day this week and he will have two days off.
Whew!