day 60

Well, Praise the Lord, I made it through today. I will explain later. I went into this day wanting to get some good forward movement from these horses. That was my plan. I will tell you up front I got what I wanted. Robbie is who I started with. He came willingly enough. I groomed him. He even stood nice for the fly spray. I did some ground work exercises and I could tell he was full of himself today. But I worked him changing directions til he calmed down. Then put the saddle on him and all was ok. I moved him around YH YF, ect. Then he was throwing his head around, just real resistant. He even offered a slight buck, but I kept asking for his head in and changing directions, flexing him at a standstill and he would throw his nose in the air, etc. So I put him on the long line and had him really move out in a canter and he was head high and strung out and hollow backed. I kept bumping his nose back to me finally he started to carry his head a little lower and not so much with his nose out. I turned him around and did the same thing in the othe direction. I was even considering not riding him just cause I had an intuition that it might get hairy. But he calmed down so I got my helmet switched to the lead line. This time I didn't use a bit, just the halter, like a Bosal and flexed him moved him out while I walked beside him. He was tossing his nose in the air all feisty like. The same thing he did with the bit, so now I know it is not the bit that bothered him so much. He does need some teeth work, but if he still did it with the halter, it is clearly not the bit. So what is it? Resistance. Resistance in a horse is not good. They can be dangerous when you are riding a resistant horse. So I just kept flexing and moving him from the ground on a loose rein until the resistance was gone the changed sides and directions and did the same thing. Then I got on him. Flexed him at a standstill, YH several times in both directions then asked to move off. I was in the center of the arena and because he likes to be by the door we always come in at he walked right there. So I turned his head and moved across the arena down the wall. Then turned him into the wall and did a sort of roll back then went back. We did this a couple times. Well there is a hydrant on the wall I was using and on the way back going to the right with the wall on the left and this long arena on the right, we were too close and my foot caught the hyrdrant and that set Robbie to bucking. Now I don't mean the kind of loping buck, not even a little crow hop. I mean all out bucking like I had seen him do from the ground, only this time I was experiencing this from his back. Fortunately, I had a death grip on the horn with my left hand, and my right was fishing for rein so I could bend him. He must have caught me in between switching hands and reins because I didn't have the night latch.I had to snake my hand down the rein so I could get him to bend to the right and slow down. He bucked real good rodeo style for what seemed like a really long time, but I got him settled down. Then off we went, I didn't let him stop for upwards of ten to 15 minutes. We did zig zags, circles, but we walked and walked and I bent him and turned him. It was worth the buck to get him to this point where we were really doing some moving out. I rode him til I got my breath back then let him rest. He finally kept wanting to go to the middle where He could rest. So we stopped and I flexed him. He was stiff, but I kept flexing til he was soft again. Then got off. His flanks were still heaving and I got the plaque moved through in my heart, but it was good. As I always do before I get on, I prayed and asked the Lord to keep us safe. I guess I should have been more specific and asked that he not buck. However, I got the forward movement I was looking for. This set me up for a good ride on Darkstar. I figured since I made it through Robbie, I can do it with Star too. So I was like normal with him. He was all relaxed for grooming and saddling. I moved him around some too in order to make sure he was yielding and soft. Then I used the halter instead of bit with him too. I got on and flexed him and YH with him and moved him off. He kept playing his one step two step game. I had enough of that and really got after him as though on the ground and he moved. He was a little jumpy, but we moved all around the arena YH and turning, etc. We even got into a trot a couple times. I rode him about 20 minutes like that, stopping every so often, but we had a good ride. Finally, with lots of forward. Now we will be ready to move on to getting softness with the forward and moving to trot and canter. It was a good day of training.