New Years Day Ride

I had a very good day with Louie today. Not because he was perfect as in fact he had quite a naughty moment today. But I was very happy with how well we were able to work though it and how well he did overall. Today when I went to the barn to ride, there were a lot of people around. Dogs, kids, people, horses etc. When I brought him up to the barn, there were 3 other horses already up and cross tied in the aisle. He didn't know what to think of this but was quite well behaved though I could see he was anxious. He was good while I groomed and saddled him. He was also getting more and more bug eyed and snorty by the moment. There were others already riding in the arena. This was the first time I've ridden there with others. I wisely decided to lounge him first. He suffered a bit of a mental overload at first and was quite a handful to start. His "excitement" caused everyone to moved down to one end of the arena away from us. Louie wanted to go with them. He did a bit of jumping and leaping just short of outright bucking that got him immediate reprimands. Then he tried to bolt down to the other end a few times. I was able to hold him just short of doing the "dope on a rope" routine. LOL. But, after about 5 minutes, his brain started to engage. Soon he was lounging nicely and listening to me and I decided it would be safe to get on him. He did great under saddle. He was very confused about what the other horses were doing. Passing him in all directions, walking, trotting, and cantering. He was a mix of worried and excited. But, his mind stayed with me the whole time. When he wasn't sure what to do, he would put his ears to me and wait for me to tell him what to do and did it. A couple times he thought about turning to follow a cantering horse. Each time I asked for a small circle asking him to disengage his hindquarters and he did so softly with no fuss. We did a lot of transitions, some turns on the hindquarters and turns on the forehand. He did well with all of it.

It was good working with Louie today with all the distractions. I love how he looked to me for what to do. (after he got his brain working....LOL)
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