Getting our herd used to our new shelter today. Stormy and Tara were okay on line and at liberty but Mark and I helped Spirit get used to it through repetition and approach/retreat until he was a bit more confident about it. We will continue to do this so that he gets acclimatised to it more and more.
Just a short video showing how I saddle. Soft, kind, no tying up, working on both sides and always looking for relaxation and acceptance from the horse 🙂
This video hopefully shows two of the things I always strive to get over time to make mounting better. The first is asking the horse to square his feet up so that he’s balanced and ready for me to be on his back, the second is asking the horse to learn to sidle up to the mounting block and later whatever I am standing on to mount (ie. gate, large stone, quad bike, another horse!). These two things get better with practise so I will film us again doing these after our first 7 practise sessions to show how we’re getting on with it.
And here is a short update on ‘squaring up’ with Spirit…