Progress!

A definite sign of progress has been seen!

I brought my mom (aka Pony Grandma) out with me on Sunday to make things a bit easier for me. I really wanted a calm, relaxed day at the barn where I could actually achieve something with Cisco. This meant that I would need to have both horses in the arena at the same time. I don't really like to baby my guys too much, but I just wanted a day when neither me nor my horse was in the arena screaming.

Saturday night - staring out of the arena in the direction of whoever was calling back to him

Cisco was first up- the goal was just a quick lunge with side reins on. He listened pretty good, but was silly about a corner and cutting in quite a bit. Phantom was in the arena, but at the far end, so still out of his comfort zone. But I was happy with how well he listened to me.

Then I traded horses with the Pony Grandma and hopped on Phantom. She had socks on in her flip-flop hoof boots, so I was hoping she would be a bit more comfortable doing something other than walk. She was. She would happily do a western pleasure jog.  So we practiced our WP jogging. And I did a bunch of walk trot transitions off my seat. And called it a day after 20 minutes. 

While I was riding, Pony Grandma was holding onto Cisco in the arena. I had told her I would love for him to be able to park for a few minutes at a time, as he needs practice just chilling. In the beginning it was not looking good. He was calling to someone outside, and not listening to Grandma overly well. I was trying to keep an eye on them in case I needed to hop off and rescue my mom. But suddenly, the switch flipped and he just stood with her. Dead quiet. At which point she draped the rope over his back and let go. And he didn't move. And I said "he's not Phantom - don't let go of him!". Grandma is much too trusting of the grand-ponies.

So it was a relatively relaxed day, just as I hoped. And then my day got even better.

When we took the ponies out to their field, the other horses were eating hay along the fenceline, close-ish to the gate. First potential sign of progress - bully Arab nickered at them as we approached. Okay. Didn't see that coming. Was it a welcome nicker or an I'm going to kill you nicker?

We put my guys in, and they didn't run away. And no one chased them. All righty then. I grabbed some of the hay and brought it over to them so that they wouldn't have to try to eat along the fence with the others. And no one moved (well, nasty Arab made a move towards them once, but I was still in there so I growled at him and he went back to his place on the fenceline). They were maybe 20 -30 feet away from each other, and food was involved, and no one was worried.

This pic was taken as I was driving out, at least 15 minutes after turning them out.

I call that progress.

There was a rainbow in the sky to my left on my way home. (A big storm was brewing to my right.) It was a good horse day.