Water Horse!

Frank and I are not going to be best friends. I bring him and another horse down from their pasture at the same time. Ghost acts like an angel. Frank has to stop and stare at everything and snort at it every five strides. I mean, it's not like he passes this stuff every single day of his life, right? Ohh there's a tractor up there, let me stop and look. Ohh we're 20 feet closer to it now, I need to stare at it again. Ohh, we're next to it, must stare. And now we're past it, I need to stare some more to make sure it doesn't get us from behind. Ohh Frank.

Then I went to visit Hick. He was very happy to see me, he chased all the other horses off when they tried to come near us. I loved on him for a while and then he followed me all the way back to the gate and we had a little trot and he wanted to come out but I had to tell him I would be back later!

So this little story was the highlight of my day. I had a pretty long break around the middle of the day. I went up to visit with Hick and he was playing in the water trough. Splashin, dunking his head under, and just having a big time all by himself. I watched him being cute for a while and then got to thinking.. I bet he doesn't know there is a pond in his field or he would be in it right now (the pond is behind a big hill). So I went out and grabbed him and we trekked across the pasture to the pond. He was so excited, I took his halter off and he went right in the water. I think it made his day, too. He splashed and played and I sat down and hung out with him for a while.

I had a lesson about an hour and a half later and when I went out to get him, Hick was still out in the pond! I had to wade out there and pull him in! I'm glad he found the pond, because since he refuses to make friends I think he is a little bored.

My lesson was great--I used the new bit and it seemed to work really well so Martha gifted it to me so it's our very own! It just about completely eradicated the curling issue, he only put his head down twice the entire lesson. What a good boy! We did some work on my sitting trot, which I found out needs a lot of work. Going with the concept of moving with your horse, I needed to move A LOT MORE with my horse, I was way too still. It was a great ab work out! And is also a work in progress. She also wanted to see a lot bigger, more "inspiring," trot. She said it takes him from looking like an old school horse to a winning dressage horse. And we also worked on canter departs which are still sticky but I think we're getting the hang of it--he is a fast learner. We had one really great canter depart today.

No lesson tomorrow, going to take him for a little lazy ride and try to find some Parelli games to play.