So Much Fun!

I adore this pony :)

We worked on ground driving for the third time today and it was so awesome. She was moving forward without me nagging at all and turning really nice even in small circles. Of course she still isn't great at remaining on a line but even experienced horses have trouble with that. I hadn't planned on trying to trot with her because once I moved up in speed I knew the likelihood of her freaking out as I jogged behind her was pretty high. She was doing soooo well though that I just went ahead and decided to try it out. The first couple of times she would try a couple of steps and then freeze. I LOVE that her way of handling stress is to freeze. It is seriously the best way for a riding horse to handle any situation they are unsure of and I am careful to reward it by letting her whenever I can tell that the freeze is fear or stress based. I actually think that part of her feeling like she was going to rear up under saddle was because in the past she's been pushed when she freezes up.

At any rate, on the third try I got a really nice trot and rewarded it by letting her stand for a little while. We walked a little more and then I decided to try one more nice trot and she was just perfect. I had a nice trot, with steering and she kept going right past her buddy horse with only a slight pause. It was so perfect that I had to use it as a good point to stop and gave her a huge amount of praise and tons of scritches. She just soaks in my verbal praise more than any other horse I've been around. I can seriously see how proud she is of herself.

The plan for tomorrow is to do some more ground driving and this time have her wear the bridle but not hook reins to it. I also need to work on her feet and with the weather we are supposed to be having, freezing rain, we may end up in the barn again doing clipper desensitization and hoof trimming again which wouldn't be bad at all either :)