Day 4

I am writing this on Saturday morning. I also updated my bio, so if you are interested you can check that out.
Anyway, I worked with Ceasar yesterday and had a good workout. I don't know if you know this but you can burn alot of calories working with horses. Just saying.
I began with round penning him. Just want to see how long it takes him to come and rest beside me. I am not trying to wear him out. Alot of people have the wrong impression, in my opinion, of the purpose of round penning or lungeing a horse. I do it to check his attitude, his mobility (is he lame?), to see how yielded he will be to  me or is he resisting me? All of this information dictates where I go next in the session. I do alot of transitions from direction changes to gait. Today it took about 5 minutes before he was wanting to stand with me. That is improvement. I then went through my check list of exercises that need refining: disengaging, moving shoulders, lateral flexion. I do the sending exercise which incorporates all of those in a fluid movement. I worked on his backup and in all of these he is doing good, making improvements.
Then I got the lariat out and started sacking him out with that before I flanked him out. I put it around his girth and pulled and he started giving to the pressure and following me. I didn't think he would buck. Then I moved it to where the flank cinch would be and again he just gave to the pressure and didn't show signs of bucking. I moved him forward and still no buck. Hmm! I put it around his belly and again no buck. Yet. I moved him forward and really put pressure there and got some bucking out of him. I kept it up until he would relax, quit bucking and just keep moving forward.  Then I would put pressure on him again and get a little buck. I kept this up until I could really rank on the rope and not get a buck. I tested this a couple more times and then let him rest. I noticed that he is seeking to rest beside me more often when he is under this sort of pressure which is a good thing.
I put the saddle on him good and tight and moved him off. He started to buck, but I shut it down by disengaging his hindquarters then moved him off again and whenever he showed he was going to buck I shut him down and kept him moving. This whole bucking thing lasted maybe 7-10 minutes and then it was like I couldn't get him to buck. Good thing!
So I went to doing the various exercises as before with the saddle on him. Banging the stirrups, slapping the saddle etc. I tightened the cinch a couple more times to see how he reacted to that. No problem. I did the sending exercise and he was real relaxed with that.
Finally, I spent the last 5 minutes getting on and off him.
All went well.
He is getting today and tomorrow off then we will be back to work.
I noticed he has a wierd hop with his canter in his back legs so we are going to have a chiropractor look at him and hopefully fix that. It may mean some down time while he recuperates from that but that is ok. Whatever is best for him is the way we will go.
Have a great day all.
My plans are to fix fence and ride my own horses today. Hopefully. :}