A nice lunch out yesterday at our horse group meeting. We had a new venue which was very cosy and welcoming.The weather was glorious, so I hurried home to do some work with Remy only to find that it was damp and overcast at our place. The horses were hanging around the gate though so I brought them in and set off with Remy up to the school. I usually work the horses in the morning so Remy was a little nonplussed at having to work when he expected to come in for his tea. He was very distracted, looking and stopping then setting off at trot at every noise so all I could do was to try and get him to relax and lower his head. After a while he started to calm a little and we managed a few minutes in-hand work. He was still a little tense, but he was listening and containing his worries. I asked him for a few halt and walk transitions and finished on a good note.
Today, another in-hand session and he was really calm and attentive. Nice clean halt transitions. Halt/reinback/walk on transitions were more fluid, we did a few shoulder-in steps off the corner interspersed with a few circles. I love it when you get that 'right' feeling, it makes my day.
Took Anky out for another hack, started off sticky when she refused to go into the wood. She 'offered' me backwards and sideways, but not forward, so I asked for more backwards and sideways until, when asked. she offered forward. It was all very calm and took about five minutes and eventually she decided she could go into the wood. After this she was ok, still looking, but forward and we repeated the exercises from the other day of halt/walk on, halt/reinback/walk on and she progressively became softer in the hand. She gradually became calmer and stretched into a soft contact and we did a little leg yield and shoulder-in on the way home.
1 comment:
woohoo is all I can say!
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