Montee (Part 4)

The following Sunday, the indoor was going to be quiet at my 9:45 lesson time, and the outdoor was pretty soggy from some rain, so we worked indoors. 

Montee was pretty quiet in his stall. He seemed happy to see me and his eye (and body) had softened by the time I started to brush him with the soft brush I brought Montee out about around 9:15 to start lunging him. He came out pretty soft, we only had a few instances of him pulling me but I just kept sending him forward and pulling/releasing on the rope and he softened and licked and chewed. 

I was just starting to put the saddle on him when T came back from whatever chores she'd been doing and she sent us over to V to lunge some more. Montee immediately started pulling a lot, especially tracking left. She asked if he had been like that before and I said not really, he was really soft before I put the saddle on, but he always pulls more tracking left (which is backwards from most horses, who are worse on the right because people don't do as much work on the right!). 

She asked if I thought the saddle was too far forward for him, and I said, I'm not sure, maybe. So I stopped him and shifted it back just a little bit. That helped the pulling significantly but it was still there every so often.

When I brought him in to bridle him, she had me go into the boarder's tack room and borrow an ergonomic girth. J checked the saddle fit, deemed it ok, and did up the new girth. I didn't bridle him, so we were only changing 1 thing at a time, and then took him over to P to lunge. He was immediately softer, so we only did a few circles in each direction before coming in to bridle. 

After a few more spins with the bridle on, T had me run the whip all over his body until he licked and chewed. He even cocked his hind foot for a moment! Then she dropped the mounting block by him a few times. No reaction whatsoever. So, I stepped up, stepped down, stepped up, lifted my arms, stepped down, etc. And then I stepped on and gently put my leg over and gathered my stirrup.

We stood for a moment, and then I gently asked him to walk off. He humped his back a little bit but I exhaled, added some leg, and talked to him and he changed his mind. T praised us both for relaxing and commented, I think it's a good thing your mare was a bit fractious when you got on, because you didn't yank on him or get upset, which was just what he needed from you. 

Once again, we only walked, but we had several lovely moments of a really soft contact in the bridle where he stretched into my hand and really stepped under himself, lots of breathing (from both of us!), and he relied less on the safety net of T holding his lead, because he trusted me more and had more confidence in himself and in me.

At the end, T said how proud of me she is and spent awhile rubbing Montee's face while repeatedly saying that this soft-eyed horse is the one she knows is in there and that's the reason he is still at her farm. She said we just have to find him and convince him to stay longer each time.