Thursday, May 14, 2009

Back to Basics

Bad ponies go back to basics! I know that he's only been in the barn for less than a week, and things are super scary when you're new, but Desi has been a few places- and he's old enough at 8 to not be so spooky, at least one would think so. So today we went back to the basics- walk and jog a circle. Big whoop!
I put his snaffle,cavesson and martingale back on, lunged the buck out (mostly!) and then mounted up.  He was still a little stiff to the left, and bracey to the right, so we worked on small and large circles at the walk and the jog. After about 40 minutes ( that is thirty minutes less than on Tuesday!) he began to supple up, and give his face. Ahhhhh! So as a reward we went to the SCARY end of the Arena to rest. And then back to walking and trotting circles, and rest at the Scary end. You get the picture. I am a firm believer in two simple tenets- One: Make the wrong thing hard and the right thing easy. And Two: If they don't like it- do it some more. 

So after he was 'good' he got tied in his stall to think on what we did as I rearranged the tack box ( again). The hardest thing really is not knowing where everything ended up! 
And now off to shop for the Benefit!


2 comments:

BrownEyed Cowgirl said...

I'm with you on those tenats!

Everybody here has had the last week off...I just HAD to get caught up on some cleaning up, corrals built and horses switched around...and I'm pretty sure I will be starting over with several of them.

City girl turned Country Girl said...

I'm gonna have to vote yes on the tenets too!!! Always frustrating to have to go back to basics...We are doing that as well with a mare who had a couple of years having babies...