day 15

The storms kept me out of yesterdays session, but today we got back at it.
I put him in the pen got everything set up to start and again he didn't want to catch me. So he ran around for 4 minutes, I timed him, before he decided I was a good person to be around. He is catching me faster. Then instead of putting the halter on him I just kept walking away from him and changing directions daring him to leave me. When I was satisfied that he wanted to be with me I put the halter on him. I sacked him out as before with the saddle and pad so that he wouldn't keep moving off. Putting it on and off gets heavy though. Finally, I cinched him up and then moved him and he wanted to run again, but I just kept him doing the falling leaf. I bet we did that 50x or more before he settled down and wanted to walk through it. Then he blew it again wanting to go fast.  But it didn't take him long on this second go round for him to settle down. Then I hobbled the stirrups and put the driving reins on him and ground drove him several times around the pen, changing directions and stopping and so on. He did real well, nice and calm. The rein on his back leg didn't bother him at all. The last 15 minutes I rode him with reins and bit. He did just fine. We worked on his backup with driving him and from his back. He rounds up nicely. I still don't have a real willing partner like I want. So we have some work to do. I plan to take him down the road tomorrow on the ground, do some ground driving and ride him again. He's a puzzle, that horse, that's for sure.