Day Five: Wild Child

Official Records Information
Blu
11/22/09
45 minutes
Afternoon

On Sunday, I went down to the farm with the plans of seeing the horses and then leaving, but after watching Blu run around, bucking, doing flying lead changes, rearing and crashing down on his pasture mates, I really wanted to play with him! I wanted him in the round pen so he would not disturb my sister, who was playing with her horse in the South Pasture (where Blu lives), nor my buddy and her horse, who was playing in the North Pasture. Another choice I made before I made it onto the pasture was that I would use a carrot stick today so I could make myself bigger if I needed to be.

We just stood and watched the three horses in the South Pasture playing for a while, and then I began to stalk him as the older horses calmed down. My stalking got the horses riled again. Blu kept running with the older horses, so I positioned myself between Blu and the older horses. Things got a bit easier when Maggie got her horse. Now it was just Blu and Hoosier. I communicated to Hoosier that I was not after him, and once he understood that, Blu was just a lone nut in the pasture. It was a lot of fun to dance that dance! We did million dollar moves with a lot of life in them, spins (which he does not know how to do, it just came out that way), and such.

I got him latched on and he followed me to the round pen. I was surprised that he turned, faced, and waited when he got in, rather than going to the nibblies. I led him to the fence and round penned him the way the Reis Horsemanship does, kind of. I did not pen him beneath my gaze the way they do. I worked on transitions (backing, walking, trotting, halting) and there was a cavaletti set up in one part. I wanted his expression to smooth out when we went up to the trot or quickly to a halt. When I was done, I had just that. I stopped when I got that relaxed and willing transition.

Once again, Blu turned and waited once he was out the gate. I gave him a hug and he followed me to the barn, where he stood in the stall that opens directly to the outside as I did some chores.

That was a GOOD session! One of the nice things about working with two horses is that if you have a rough day with one, you can count on having a great day with the other!

Natural Horsewoman Out.