day 65

Had a good day with the horses today. Star was first in the lessons today and there was plenty to work on. I decided to rd pen him to build on the hooking on to me. The rd pen has worked much better for this. Today I had him walk, then stop. then trot and walk and stop. Then walk, trot and canter and stop. each stop was in the middle with him walking to me. I did this three times and by the third time when I let him stop (and he wasn't doing a lot of sweating or heaving at all) he walked quickly to me. It was then that I saddled him and moved him through YH YF, sending and circling around the pen. Then I flexed him and got on and flexed some more. My goal was to get more trotting out of him. I got it. I can get a trot in the right lead no problem it is going in the left lead that I have trouble. So for every lap in trot to the right I worked twice in the left. He was doing much better and getting much softer. Also he was not jumping as much. I had what I might call a 'light bulb' moment today too. I think in the future, a horse with his extreme trust issue, I won't do as much sacking out/desensitizing until he trusts me. I will do so but not as much as I did with him. This may have caused him to not trust me as quickly. Anyway when we were finished and he was put up I gave him the core of an apple and after a about a minute he took it from my hand after smelling it adn ate it. That was huge, because a horse that doesn't trust you will not usually eat from your hand. This was the first time he did this though it has been offered several times before. Robbie was really good today too. I rd penned him but not as much as he already hooks on to me and follows me. Today I wanted to get a nice walk to a stop, then a walk to trot to walk and a stop, then a walk to trot to canter to trot to walk and a stop. All without kicking up a lot of dust, but all nice and calm. He willingly moved through the transitions with no much compulsion or cue, but just enough to get him going. Then I saddled him and moved him through YH YF, sending and circling around the arena at a walk and trot and canter. He did well so I got on him. We walked on a loose rein and got several really soft YH one rein stops. Then we moved up to trotting several circles. My goal here was to get him to stay in a trot on a bigger circle and then get some soft one rein stops in both directions. I also wanted to work on getting him to follow his nose and stay more on the rail. We did several figure 8's and trotting through those. Then we started working on keeping the forward motion but trying to get collection. It wasn't long and I was getting vertical softness/collection at the walk for a step. Tomorrow we will build on this. So it was a good session with him too.