Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Joey

I have been working with the Joey the last 3 days. He is a paint/pinto horse. He is 21 and his owner wanted me to work with him for a few days to get him to the point of riding. The first night I had him I worked in the round pen. He did pretty good. He is way overweight and the dust was like a cloud in there so I had to tone it down some.
The Second day I rode him in the pen. Walk, trot, Canter, did some light ground work, checked him out with the saddle. He is a butter ball to be sure. When I rode him I had to be careful the saddle didn't rotate with the fat on him. No lie!. He moved his hindquarters, and his shoulders. He has a back up and one rein stop. He likes to stop. Ha! Ha!.
Today, I rode him in the round pen. I decided to work with him from a mounting step. I finally got him to step up to that so I could get on. The saddle doesn't rotate as much.
I did this a couple times. Then I rode him in the larger arena doing the cruising lesson just trying to keep him in a trot and to direct him. We also did some bending exercises and yield hindquarters on the rail. I really have to keep after him to go so the cruising lesson was pretty good for him. He kept wanting to go back in the rd pen so I let him and then worked him really hard. He did this twice then he wanted nothing to do with the rd pen. LOL. I took him out in the big pasture and really had no trouble there either. He needs some coaxing to get up to canter, but if I let him work into it he transitions smoothly. He has a real nice trot and lope. He just is dull to the rein directionally. He kept wanting to go to the gate to the barn so I let him go and then worked him real hard again and walked him away to the shade and let him stand, no problem there. I had to do this 3x before going to the gate didn't sound like a good idea to him. This is easier than fighting him.
He just needs a bunch of riding to get him into shape and he will continue to be a nice ride.