Last week I made it to the barn on Tuesday and Friday. I not only focused on the lunging work (yes, I do keep intentionally changing the spelling of that word), I put Matilda on the 25 foot longe line. More freedom, less control... but very hot weather was once again on my side.
Both days, I started close, with her only 2-3 feet away, and worked her out to about 20 feet away with mostly walk/stop transitions. I began asking for walk/trot transitions when she was about 15 feet away but continued to feed the line out to 20 feet. I continued the process of clicking randomly for upward and downward transitions, for trotting a few steps or walking without any kind of tension on the line... or any combination of those things.
Tuesday we had one near take off. This one was due to the madness of other horses coming in from the pasture and it was relatively easy to bring her down. By that I mean throwing down the longe whip and using two hands and all my body weight to drag her head into me while giving her an extremely firm "Matilda, Whoa" seemed to do the trick.
Matilda is so quiet in the work and from the heat that I am becoming more and more comfortable in my handling of her. We had a horse being brought in for a lesson and I wanted to get her to the paddock before the trailer came down the hill, past the ring. I actually tried to get Matilda to trot with me by jogging beside then in front of her, outside of the ring, down to the paddock. This is something I never would have attempted one month ago... heat or no. You can see how well it went:
My new favorite picture.... It's sort of like trying to move a brick wall.
Friday was flawless. While working on her left, I was able to get a series of smooth walk/trot transitions (going from the walk to trot to walk to trot, etc.) without stopping. Clicking only after I asked for and received a solid stop. Throughout all these transitions I was able to flick the whip however and wherever I needed to keep her moving. She never flinched at it.
If you looked at the videos a couple of posts ago, you'll recall that it took me a couple of minutes to get her to trot in one of them. This has all but stopped. She picks up the trot within a few steps of my asking for it almost every time. I credit the upward transition clicking for that one. On Friday she was going up and down through her gaits readily.
Sometimes she still tries to walk into me when I tell her to "walk on" but that only occasionally. I do click for walking out into whatever circle we've established when I give the cues. I expect that walking into me behavior to extinguish itself.
We are only working about 30 minutes in the current heat. Enough time for a short review and 15-20 minutes of circle lunge work. Matilda seems really relaxed and willing.
I have guests in town this week, hence the rushed-style post. I won't get to see Matilda until Thursday afternoon. The work last week was fantastic and I am already thinking of adding a saddle to the longe line work, to see how she responds to the stirrups banging against her sides. Could be exciting!
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