Sweet Sunday

This weekend I spent time with Lilly on both Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I decided to do some de-sensitizing ground work with Lilly. I used to do this kind of ground work a lot. I'd roll big bouncy balls at her, I'd hook long ropes up to her and have her pull old plastic feed bags around, even a beach ball made it into the mix. I'd have her walk over tarps and piles of sticks. Sometimes I'd longe her in the round pen Bill had set up. So Saturday I packed a bucket full of things to throw at her (not literally) and see if I couldn't make her into even a better horse than she already is.

It was incredibly windy on Saturday. Does that mean ground training was all the better? I never knew how scary the wind can be before I owned a horse. So the wind shoved itself into my de-sensitizing lesson. One of the other things I worked on was getting her to not care a scallion about the 4 wheeler zooming by. Of course, we have done this training before. But Saturday the 4 wheeler gave her a little fright as Bill came zooming into the ring. So we had to work on that for sure.

Click here for a little video to see how it went!

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Yet another training tool I was using was the very scary grocery-store-plastic-bag. Who knew such a dumb little thing could be such an effective learning prop? All I can say is that my brumby has never really liked those darn bags. Saturday was no different. In fact, it was worse because the wind was so fierce. Here is my friend the Horse Whipserer(!) stepping in and getting the job done!

I had an umbrella in my bag of tricks to pop at Lilly (something I saw Clinton Anderson doing once) but I really felt Lilly was reaching her limit. So I got on her, rode her for 5 spooky minutes (thanks again, Wind) and then called it a day. Bill brought me out a beer from one of the local breweries here. I looked at the bottle and shrieked, There's Lilly!!!

On Sunday I was back in the ring. Bill was there with Jodie. Here she is not moving for 30 minutes at the hitching post because she actually thinks she's tied up. Hah, she wasn't! In the ring today I cantered around and got Lilly to go through the new obstacle course that Bill has been building. Now there is a ditch filled with water with a small jump set up in front on it. On the other side of the ditch is a small hill. The idea is to race through it, endurance style. Lilly and I went at a walk and a trot! I guess we wouldn't win any contests for speed. Not yet anyway.

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Here is a video of us going through it! Click here. Don't you love my brumby's big white bum?

Bill went through the course and Jodie followed him like a dog! He wasn't even leading her with a rope! She just wanted to follow him!

She followed him under the scary tarp...

.. through the muck and through the new ditch! Never say never, but this is something Lilly would never do! Check out the video here.

Back at home the grim-reaper-rock-star-hoodlum-hubster was making the yard pretty.