I had a great evening with Marley, he is progressing under saddle well, and I'm so pleased that he has picked up where we left off. We worked more today on bend and moving forward, and when we were joined by another horse and rider in the arena we worked on moving around in sync with them. Marley, for whatever reason, does not like being near other horses. It might have something to do with the fact that the horses next to him are constantly in his face, or that when I started him, I didn't use a pony horse because I don't own one. In any case, it took about twice around the arena before Marley finally relaxed fully while walking next to the other horse, and then he was very quiet and calm. I was glad we got to start working with another horse, and I plan on doing a lot more in the coming weeks with getting Marley comfortable in all kinds of new situations.
On a side note, Marley's coat is looking great! I brushed him again for a good 30 minutes and got so much hair off of him. He is shedding like crazy, and I'm starting to see some shiny, chestnut coat coming through. My guess is that his summer coat is coming in dark, but then, it's still hard to tell. Looking forward to a sleek, shiny Marley!
Lauren, I also have a horse that is aloof of vicinity of other horses. But it is not Coppersmith900. It is actually my good Aragon, who I use for ponying and in our formation drill, which you can imagine is (or better) was his least favorite thing to do. He is not a BLM horse and so I think some of that is individual and character and somehow I understand it as a form of respect and smarts...Gabriele
ReplyDelete