On-line and ride no 41 in the woods

Tuesday 16th November 2010

In between the last entry and ride no 2 with Amy on the above date, I did 3 sessions driving from zone 5 then getting on board to ride back. One time, I just had to sit on Duncan's rug as he was soaking wet and I put a rug on to dry him (didn't work!) Nice and comfy though!

I can't remember much about the riding bit (uneventful apart from one sticky bit coming home) but on-line, he is coming on really well and getting bolder and bolder. We even went into the spooky woods on the right and went all the way to the bottom. He was a bit tense but I got him busy. Now doing shoulder-in on the ground and lots of sideways to try to supple him up. He's picked them up well and puts a good effort in too.

Ride with Amy:
We got all the way into the woods and almost to Amy's field where we met Amy. Duncan was raring to go! I was a bit perturbed to see Amy on a new horse - a huge TB - which she told me had not hacked for a year - and is an ex hunter. GULP! Visions of us galloping out-of-control round the woods filled my head, not assisted by the fact that "Henry" was not keen to stand still to be mounted. Duncs was fine for me to get on and we both stood for a while.

As it turned out, Henry was a real gentle giant whilst Duncan pinged along generally bracing against contact and rushing off my leg in a rather unpleasant way. Basically, he wanted to go! At one point, he was so frustrated he fly bucked and I thought "here we go" but it came to nothing.
Still only walking, slowly, slowly does it! Maybe I will feel like trotting next week if/when:
a) Duncan is more responsive
b) I'm sure our babysitter will not come too if Duncs does take off a bit!

I was pleased overall but it did highlight how badly in need of "schooling" Duncs is (what is this called in Parelli language I wonder). I need to be able to move him about when he gets whizzy - he wasn't keen on listening at all! The positive was that I ended up really looking forward to my lesson!