And he took off on me today.........well, he did a Luke version of taking off anyway! When I entered the arena, Meghan, another Upper Pond employee, was walking one of the horses in the arena. I had not met her before as we don't work the same days. After introductions, she asked me what kind of horse Luke was!!!! ACK! HORSE! After I told her he was a mule, she grinned and admitted that she had noticed the large ears but just hadn't thought about a mule being as large or as nice looking as Luke was. And she was afraid that if by some chance it was a horse, I would be insulted if she called him a mule. I understood her point.
I was still walking Luke in hand when a woman in a wheelchair came into the arena. Luke viewed the wheelchair with much concern. When the woman got out of the wheelchair at the mounting platform, I led Luke over to look a the wheelchair. He really wasn't too concerned about it while it wasn't moving and was quickly convinced to approach it and sniff it over. At this point he was more curious about the woman pulling herself up the platform stairs. I mounted Luke and he didn't give the wheelchair any more notice. The woman's horse was a nice Icelandic and though the horse had never met Luke, she didn't pay any attention to him at all for which I was grateful.
I worked on leg yielding a little bit, then worked with getting Luke to steer off just leg cues and keeping my hands just as quiet as I possibly could. And all the usual stuff such as transitions, side passing, turns on the forehand and hindquarters. blah, blah, blah.......Luke was a very good boy.
The woman with the wheelchair finished riding before I did so when I saw her getting back into her wheelchair, I rode Luke down to the other end of the arena so he could watch from a safe distance. When the woman started wheeling across the arena, Luke was once again quite concerned about it but he stood his ground though he felt like a wound up spring under me. We had our back to the viewing room window, perhaps not the best place to be for a worried equines. Because as Luke was worriedly watching the wheelchair cross the arena, someone in the viewing room walked up to the window while putting on their coat. Luke caught that out of the corner of his eye (something that would not normally bother him) and it was just too much all at once and he decided to leave the vicinity. He turned and very determinedly marched off to the arena gate, the one opposite where the wheelchair was going. There was no stopping him. He is extremely well trained, very light in the mouth, very practiced in one rein stops but he set his neck and there was no budging it. Now, he never went faster then a walk and stopped and stood quietly at the gate when he got there. I didn't even provide any entertainment for the other riders because though he was very deliberate and determined in what he did, he was also very quiet and careful in how he did it. I could tell that he never forgot I was on board. This is what I love about Luke, even when he's scared (and that's not often) he still takes care of me. I told Luke we weren't done riding, the wheelchair was out of the arena so we just continued on with our riding. Luke was just fine. later I did have the woman in the wheelchair come over to the arena gate and wheel around a bit then come right up to the gate and pat Luke. He was a bit bug eyed for a moment but didn't try to get away and soon was letting the woman pat him. If it wasn't so hard for her to move around in the sand of the arena in the wheelchair, I'd have asked her to come into the arena.
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