I get to play with a LBI youngster. Thanks for the learning Duncan!

What's happening to me? I find I'm really up for a challenge - on the ground I hasten to add!

I went to visit my old friend Ursula (she's not particularly old - I've known her 24 yrs) for the weekend 9th/10th Oct. Urch has a 3 yr old Andalusian mare, Chenoa, who is most definitely LBI.

I was hoping I'd be able to have a play with her and, what joy, I got to play with her for a couple of hours each day. I really loved it. She is typically dominant but very switched on. She needed a lot of convincing that I was serious about her staying out of my space. It was a great chance to really work on getting the basics right and being particular without critical. Surprisingly, I found I had a lot of patience (?!) and stayed the course on each game until I saw a change. In the past, I would have quit at the first sign of a improvement, partly through lack of knowledge and partly through boredom (!) but I'm getting better at knowing when to keep going and when to quit.

The main themes we worked on were:

• Follow a feel from zone 1 - she was very sticky which made you feel like you wanted to flick with the stick! Worked on long and very clear phase 1 moving to quick effective ph 4.
• Yo-Yo - again, sticky so long, light ph 1 through to quick, effective ph 4. Good improvement here as she was very "Blah, blah, blah" initially!
• Circling - being very clear about the 3 elements of back-up, send and allow. Chen was a bit stressy about this, especially to the right when she wanted to either turn back, turn in or take off farting. I was extremely persistent with fixing each element as required and really happy with Chen's progress.
• Mounting Prep!! - I ended up lying over Chen's back, flexing her head towards me and "dismounting" into a run back. What I was delighted about was that this all felt so natural to me and I felt so confident. I'm sure, in a few sessions, I could be sitting on her thanks to the months of work I did with Duncs in this area - and the fact that Chenoa is a LBI with no hang-ups of course!

Amazing...at last, through playing with other horses, I'm becoming thankful for the hard time I've had with Duncs! I have a benchmark of how much I've learnt, and am learning, with him. Other horses have a lot more innate confidence than Duncan which makes it much easier to play with them. Duncan is the perfect guinea pig for me. I naturally bond with the extroverts, it's the introverts' respect and trust I need to learn how to win. I'm not there yet but I'm getting closer.......Thanks Duncs!