Thursday: Eclipse and I rode in the upper arena. Again we focused on yielding the shoulder. As Eclipse gets more comfortable and confident with our relationship he has started to get lax in his responsiveness. This is pretty normal at this stage, but gets frustrating as you are working with them.
Friday to help bring eclipse's focus back on me when I ride, i felt it time to start introducing a spur. This was a pretty easy process, and we spent most of this ride working on leg yields getting Eclipse to understand that if he does not move off of leg he would then feel the spur. It didn't take long for Eclipse to understand to respond when I applied my leg.
Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I spent working around the barn preparing for the open house the following weekend. Our boarders really pulled together to get the place looking great to showcase our mustangs, my teaching style and the diversity of our riders.
Tuesday I had to laugh at Eclipse. One of the improvements to our facility that we added before the open house was an outdoor wash bay. Essentially it is a bed of pea gravel that is over a drainage holding tank. I took Eclipse over to it to see what his reaction would be when asked to step on it. He dropped his head, stepped in the sinking gravel, walked a circle with his nose to the ground like a dog, dropped to he knees and rolled! Not once but twice.
Wednesday it was back to work. Eclipse tended to disagree. He seemed to like his four day break. As I worked him around the arena on the ground he would crow hop in protest... how dare I interrupt his vacation! Once felt he was with me, I got on and began his workout under saddle. I could still tell he was resistant to the idea, but with in a few moments I was able to get him to follow my lead as we worked on freestyle (loose rein riding).
Thursday I was able to put another ride on Eclipse in the upper arena getting things polished for the Open House Demo. It will be interesting to see how Eclipse works in the arena while Pandora is in there. They have been spending a lot of time together in the dry lot at night, and he definitely knows when she is around.
Friday was busy doing final preparations for the Open house the next day.
Saturday was the big day. We all got to the barn early to knock out chores and prepare our horses for demonstrations. When i came time for our demonstration I tacked up and warmed up. We showed the audience how we could work at liberty on the ground, put all four feet on the pedestal. Once in the saddle we showed some of our rollbacks and sliding stops. Kelsey and I ended it by having both horse lay down at the same time! The crowed was impressed!
After all the hoopla of Saturday, I needed a day off more then Eclipse did!
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