Monday 20 September 2010

In-Handy Stuff 07.07.10 pt 2

Repeated similar work last night but altered the height of the bit in her mouth first..actually put it UP and popped my drop noseband on her, loose in case she is sore and so that she can still mouth (able to get three fingers under easily, but adjusted so that it could give a small amount of support to the bit.

Came to the conclusion that Bally really objects to me working her inhand directly from the bit but is much happier if I put myself further back and hold the reins as if I'm riding...and is even happier on longlines. If I was being really hamfisted I'd have thought it would be the other way round??

Anyway she was steadier in her mouth, not great, but nothing like as irritated as she was before, so a small step in the right direction.

Walked her up to the corral and popped on her again. Did a little work on reinback from a legs back / lighten seat aid accompanied by the verbal clunk I use on the ground and lot's of praise when she moved her weight back

She got it straight away :-D

Then we just did five minutes of working on walking straight with halt transtions added, trying to keep her channelled straight throughout.B was much better with her mouth and head ridden, I just tried to keep a soft elastic even contact and she took it forwards and was settled by it. I'm obviously doing something seriously wrong inhand!

We ground to a halt a couple of times as I got grippy with my thighs, entirely my fault and good in a way because at least I know my holding aid to step up into halt works.

I'll walk her up to the school tomorrow night to see how we get on on a nice surface rather than rutty potholed grass....I'm hoping I'll be even more pleasantly surprised by her.

She's such a lovely willing calm girl who really seems to be enjoying her work, but I worry she's not thinking forwards enough which is imperative at this stage, so lot's more hacking out on the cards

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