Field Trip!

The plan was to haul V to my friend Jim's house for the day. The rain the day before put his riding arena under water though. Since I promised to haul somewhere we headed over to Latta Plantation. Its a huge state run park with a large horse facility. They have over 5 arenas. They rent out trail horses and teach a few lessons. Fortunatley most of their arenas were dry with a few puddles. Perfect for water training!!!

When we got there he was more aggittated than normal but wasn't as upset as he was when he got the farm the first time. He looked around a lot but stood still and was respectful of my space.

When I had him all ready to go I lead him down to the arena with his bridle on his saddle. This is when he was the most upset. He spooked HARD but in place the first time he saw the other horses. Then walked around like a 17HH giant!

He was very respectful of my space though. What he didnt' do was look at me. So when we went into the arena I worked him back and forth on the scariest part for him until he did.

Once he took a breath and would look at me when I would ask him to change directions then I took the rope and bent him in both directions.

This was the result:

It was time to ride! I bridled him, got on, and started moving him shoulders like I would at home.

At home I'm VERY VERY nit picky about him looking around. He lives there, there is absolutely nothing that he needs to look at outside of my direction. At a new place there are obviously going to be things he hasn't seen before. I still don't allow him to look OUT of my direction but I'm a tiny more lenient about him looking up in the direction that we are traveling.

Looking out like this gets corrected with shoulders or a change of direction.

There was one part of the woods that he didn't like and wasn't as responsive with the shoulders so I changed tactics and leg yielded him TOWARDS the scary woods. He lifted his shoulders and settled down. He shouldn't be allowed to get his shoulders out from my aides.

Once we could make a lap and change direction without any fussing on his part we got to work. He was MUCH more settled at the trot. It is a nice way to get out some of his nervous energy but not let him go wild.

He was nervous at first but only showed his uneasiness in his tail.

Once he settled into his trot he was great! We even went trotting through a big puddle!
Want to see what a leg yeild looks like from behind??

Since he was doing so well I decided to push it a little and ask for the canter. He settled down into a really nice canter and we even went through a puddle!

Then we called it a day for the riding. We went for a walk around all the barns and other arenas. He was VERY polite but showed his stress in his tail. He settled down and was quiet. We headed back to the trailer and loaded up.

Since he was so good and it was a long day for him I gave him Sat off. Sunday he will get a light workout before heading back to real work on Monday.