A Rescued Horse's Tale (Day 37 B to 38)

DAY 37: Part 2-.6:00pm – A local fire closed our route to the arena. So, it was a round pen session again. Refined what we worked on in the morning and added Yield Hindquarters Stage 2 and some Leading Beside. Flexing was better on Roscoe’s right side today as his left side was “sticky.” The session went well overall. Respect was shown. Leadership and love was given. Not a bad way to end a very hot October day!

DAY 38: We reviewed some of the groundwork exercises that we have been working on after running the horses around a little at the arena in Somerset. Roscoe tired of loping much faster than Argent. We know that his hooves are still uncomfortable for him and we have a plan to meet with a farrier who specializes in recovering horses with poor hoof care next week. We are hopeful that one or two more trims will get him feeling great! We also found a nice snaffle bit with a thin copper/steel mouth piece for $15.00 at the local consignment tack shop. New ones like this run between $45.00-$60.00, so this was a bargain. Roscoe really seems to like this one MUCH better than the others we have. He fussed much less when we cued with it. Our plan changed a little after our session with Stacey Boyd of Royal Legend Stables when we work under saddle. On the ground we are working through the Fundamental level ground work exercises and getting them to at least a B. We have exercises 1-5 pretty good. We’ve introduced Yielding the Forequarters but need more practice on this as it is one of the toughest exercises to learn. Leading beside is MUCH better and the four backing up methods are coming along nicely. Flexing is sticky at times (not always but after 3-4 flexes he gets sticky) and we have to bump his nose now and then. Under saddle the entire focus is getting a gas pedal, a break and steering. That is it. One Rein stops, Cruising Lesson and Follow the Fence. We know that once these are really good everything else will flow. Lots of  “Squeeze, Cluck and Spank” in Roscoe’s world today and for the rest of the week. The bit issue is almost a non-issue at this point so that challenge is well on its way to being gone. It is frustrating to “feel” he knows more but does not want to give up the union card so we are doing it the long way…from square one. We will be going back to the round pen periodically as well. Looking forward to tomorrow’s training session.