Slight improvements.

We made a little bit of progress on the loading front today. This time it took four and a half minutes (yup, you read it right!) to get him into the lorry. I even managed to move him over, turn him around and lead him out forwards. He was very cautious getting out, but much better than when he arrived when he threw himself off the ramp. I put him back in again. (I’ve always been convinced that my most successful loading training is not to congratulate myself that they are on and stop, but to take them off and repeat it, however long it took to get them on in the first place.) It took three minutes or so the second time. I moved him over again and this time I shut the partition. He was anxious but he carried on eating. When I opened the partition he didn’t even try to get out. When I took him out he came down the ramp much more confidently and much better. I am thrilled. He is trying so hard for me now that I have found out just what his effort/reward button is.

I rode him too, in the barn, and I am working out just how to keep him from running away with me. I can feel when he tries to drop the bend and do it, and I can catch him just before he manages to get one up on me. It was a huge improvement on yesterday, and with that improvement the headshaking was much reduced too. His halts have improved no end, from the whole length of the barn to only half of it. His turn on the forehand is really established and his shoulder-in is really advanced for such a baby. I tried travers and he got that really well too. I even did some canter. He found it hard to strike off to the left, (he bucked once, a big one!). After a few attempts he managed some beautiful strides on both reins, but he did need some support in my hand. He was sticky in the walk/trot transition, feeling very lazy and slow to respond. I took up my whip and just touched him the lightest touch with it. From that moment onwards his transitions were as sharp as you like from the lightest leg aid. He is fantastic to train, I am loving every minute of it.

And his personality gets bigger and better all the time. We have been playing "peek-a-boo". I go out of sight in a doorway, then come back into sight and he whickers when he sees me. Then I step out of sight and do it again, and again he whickers. He'll keep it up for ages! (He does it to Tia too, but I won’t hold that against him :-)

Tia was sweet today. I was going to hack as the weather was nice but I just felt like schooling instead and she doesn’t seem to mind doing two days in a row, in fact her work usually improves for it. I tested her by trotting first on the side she would not round up on for ages yesterday. I was right, it is whichever trot that comes second that she objects to doing, not the particular rein. So I didn’t do any on the other rein today, just focussed on good transitions to the right. I did some canter transitions too, because it is woefully unbalanced for a horse of her age and is taking a long time to improve. I think that walk/canter with only a few strides of canter then back to trot, is probably the best strategy for her. I hope that she will learn to hold her form for the five or six strides, and once she can do that we can increase the distance. That’s the theory anyway.

C