Been a little while since I did much with Benny, holidays and outings with my daughter and her horse have taken priority. I walked him in hand last week when I got back from holiday as my western saddle does not fit correctly so is for sale. I am awaiting a replacement and trying to save some more pennies! Ideally I would like an Equiflex lightweight saddle – so hopefully the Western Saddler can find one to fit.
So I have been watching some Equine Liberty Sports videos to give me something to do in the meanwhile. We have done the first few exercises successfully, Be With Me, Come To Me and hip over.
Today I had him on line to start and practiced the classical inhand position, used a pointing finger to ask Benny to walk on next to me but with me at his shoulder. This he managed very well and turned with the hip over movement to go the other way.Next asked him ot circle with the finger pointing where I wanted him to go, he tried to leave once but as we were only walking I just upped my energy and pointed to get his attention back.
I then turned him loose whilst I ate my lunch and he grazed. After lunch I walked next to him as he wandered around and when he grazed I bent down and pulled up some grass – this really did get his attention. Then some liberty play, I asked him to trot and using the pointing finger and a stick as a guide he trotted round the arena, when he tried to come in I upped my energy and pointed again to ask him to go round once more. stopped him with a look at his hindquarters the first time a and drew him to me, a rub and a scratch were all he got and he didn’t even ask for a treat! The subsequent times I stopped him all I said was “whoa” and he stopped then turned to face me and I invited him to come towards me. On asking for canter I used voice commands and again he stopped on a whoa. All in all a good session, he did get a treat afterwards.
Positive Horsemanship. 