Well Diamond and I have been slow in our progress mostly due to me not knowing what new things to teach him. I have been doing more at liberty so we ARE progressing in that although he still will get the "Nah, not even treats are gonna make me play with you when I can go over here and graze." attitude. Still, better than it used to be so I am pleased that we are in a complete rut-I'm having trouble with the figure 8 of all things, something he used to do perfectly well! Suddenly he stops, knocks over barrels, gets frustrated...so while we are trying to overcome this mysterious relapse that also gives me something to focus on. I am also incorporating larger jumps into our play routien. Conditioning him for competition without him even realizing it :) Not that we are competing any time soon, but I can have "home shows" in our yard and time myself. Besides, its always good for a horse to be in excellent shape.
In the midst of all this, I found someone who is willing to let me work with her horses! The one I will be working on the most is a six year old percheron gelding named Indy. I. Love. Him. I have only worked with him for one two hour session so far but I am still so completely, utterly in love with him. Percherons have always been one of my favorite breeds-definitely my favorite heavy breed, and probably vying for first place on my overall favorite breed list. Today I mostly did the seven games with him. He is mostly LBI with a few E tendencies and maybe some slight RB but at the moment I cannot tell if the Extrovertedness is purely LB or with some RB mixed in. He did great in the games although he had the typical LB dislike of moving his forequarters. After that I played at liberty some with a LBE Shire cross named Kavi. I'm not really supposed to do much work with her though so it really was just playing and not training. We ran around and had fun, and then the third horse in the pasture-an elderly but startlingly beautiful mare named Ruby-saw that I had treats and decided her initial waryness of me did not matter so she carefully came over and I gave her a treat. There was something gentle about her eyes that really caught me-Okay, I admit to a terrible case of love at first sight with ALL of them. Then again I am afflicted with that for almost every horse I get the chance to work with, so what can I say? Horses do not help me see things rationally. Tomorrowwwwwws only a dayyy aaawayyyyyyy! And then I get to return to my newfound friends!
As a note: Susan, the horses owner, is extremely nice, I like her a lot. I was worried that whoever answered my add for horse training would watch me like a hawk and be kind of "back seat driver-ish" but she isn't at all. That is to say she watches me, but its more of an interested/making sure nobody is being murdured type of watching. I also feel like she really listens to my opinions on horses-something most equestrian adults don't do. I understand I am young, etc. but it does feel nice when your opinion is valued. I kind of think this caused me to talk to much however. I do tend to blab about horses when I am around any poor person who will listen. Goodness knows my family has to tune me out sometimes or else in the middle of watching a movie I will suddenly blurt out everything I did with Diamond that day, speaking so enthusiastically I drown out the TV.
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