Sometimes you train the horse... :-P

Sometimes you train the horse, and sometimes the horse trains you. Even if it's a greenie.

Worked Quattro in the round pen tonight. Tracking left, he was BEYOND awesome, really light and fabulous, genuinely using himself, struck off correctly at the canter when asked - with all the feet in the right order, too, which is still an issue for him, albeit he gets better every day.

Second way, tracking right, we were momentarily distracted by a MONSTER appearing on a fence post in the form of The Human Who Feeds Him Lunch (terrifying creatures, these Humans Who Feed You Lunch!), who had popped over to ask me about feed supplements. MELTDOWN!

After we got that sorted, which took a while and involved some rather quick cantering, several dead halts, and some unnamed maneuvers that ended up with us looking not AT ALL dissimilar to these excellent t-shirts on Ebay, I started to wonder: OK, what's the deal here? Tracking right is definitely his weak side, but he's not usually this untogether and avoidant and rushy and above-the-bit... Hmmmm...

The only thing I could think of was that, because I wasn't quite trusting him, I was positioning my body a little bit more forward than usual. I took three steps back, towards his quarters where I'm *supposed* to be, and voila. Started getting better results.

So I probably learned a lot more tonight than he did: Even if you're trying to get them to be less forward, you STILL have to drive from "behind", back by the quarters.

Like I said: Sometimes you train the horse... :-P

The adventure continues.