Working through the distractions.

Todays session with Remy was all about working through the distractions. He started off in his usual calm manner and then spied Joe (our farm cat) coming up the field. He's seen him plenty of times, but not in this setting and it set him off. Within seconds he was at the fence snorting. I went over to stand with him until Joe disappeared into the hedge and then we continued with our lungeing session. He was completely distracted and kept looking down the field so I moved him around the school until he started to calm a little.  Joe then appeared out of the hedge and jumped onto the school fence, which set him off again snorting and cantering around.  This time I brought him to a halt and we stood quietly for a few minutes asking him to relax his jaw and a lowering of his head and neck. This seemed to bring him back down to earth and we continued with some in-hand work of rein back, shoulder-in on the circle with a few strides down the long side.

I then took Anky to the school  and we had  a short lungeing session which helped to relax her and then a short  in-hand session. I'm really beginning to see improvement in-hand, she's much more mobile with more movement through her shoulder and less tension in her head and neck. I finished by riding her for about 10 minutes, working on small circles and shoulder-in on the circle. We finished on a long rein and she stretched and lowered her neck  so I moved her around in this position changing the rein through the circle. There's a long way to go with the ridden work, but she's definitely progressing.