Wednesday, May 15, 2013

fast horse

Well yesterday it was all I could do to keep Callie moving. Today was a different story. IT all started out innocently enough. I did some ground work with him to see how yielded he would be and he seemed good. I brought him back to my workout area (a big field I have) and saddled him up. After moving him around some I thought all was well. Then I got on and he was resistant to the point of trying to buck a few times. So I thought, he doesn't usually buck so there must be something wrong. I got off and started checking things out just had to reposition the saddle farther forward. I got back on and started working on his softness. He is not very soft at this point. I did some forward and bending exercises and then moved off at the trot. He wanted to gravitate back to his new buddies up at the barn and started to canter so I let him. For the next 30 minutes or so we mostly cantered. Oh, he wanted to slow down, but then he would call to his buddies and I would yield hindquarters, and he would canter so I let him and then when he wanted to slow down I said, NO. When it was all said and done this morning I know that I have to work on his desire to pay attention to the rein and my leg. Right now he wants to do his own thing. I gotta say though, that if I had been eating pasture grass and being left alone for 6 months and someone came along and started messing with me, I probably would not be really happy about it either. So Grand did real well today too. I had to rd pen him a little but he is starting to follow me more and more each day. My goal today was to go through all the exercises then to start driving him in a straight line with the lead rope. It took some work, but he started to go straight rather than go in a circle. I think this helps to get him to really look to me for leadership like where are we going next. My other goal was to start the process of the Jeffrey's method where I get on him bareback. So I bounced around him and then started leaning on him and actually hung over him several times today without so much as a bother to him. I had similar thoughts for Moon. Now moon takes a little rd pen, but then he walks real fast up to me so I don't have to spend much time with that. The other exercises he gets pretty good. He is not as laid back as So Grand, but he catches on quick. I also started flip the rope over his head and around his butt for a turn and go exercise that teaches him to follow his nose. So Grand does the same thing. When I started bouncing for Moon and then leaning on him he moved a few times, but soon just stood there and let me hang over his back. Tomorrow I will attempt to get all the way on both of them if they are calm enough to do so. I keep wanting to push them a further and keep making progress with them.

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