Montee (Part 5)

I wasn't able to ride last Tuesday, so I asked to switch to Thursday night's class, which then got stormed out. So, when I arrived on Sunday, T asked if I wanted to ride Jo in class, since I hadn't had a real lesson in over a week. I said sure, and I'd work with Montee on the ground afterwards. 

I stashed his brushes by his stall, said hi to him, and put his saddle in the arena so it was all ready to go when I was. He seemed happy to see me, and a bit butt hurt that I didn't work with him first.

My class with Jo was good, although I had some anxiety crop up for the left canter that I am not really sure where it came from or why it showed up. When she asked if I wanted to redo anything at the end, I said, well, part of me wants to redo that left canter depart and see if we can improve it and another part of me isn't too sure it will be better and maybe we should just call it a day. T, of course, said, if I really wanted to try it again, I could but she wasn't convinced it would be better, either. I considered that and then said, well, I was able to get through the anxiety during the left lead, and that is progress in the right direction, even if I wish it hadn't cropped up at all. So, we opted to end on that note.

Not media from this lesson, but still Jodee!

After cooling Jo out and loading her up with hay for the afternoon, I checked in to make sure it was ok for me to bring Montee out into the indoor. 

He was pretty muddy and is very sensitive about his legs being touched. I have yet to get below the hock on his hind legs without a threat of a kick. 

He will pick up his front feet for picking but is in a rush to get them back on the ground. The 1 time I tried to pick his hind feet, I almost got kicked, so I have not tried that since. It wasn't a malicious kick, just like he isn't willing to give up his ability to get away. He's so defensive of them that I have a feeling someone took his feet away from him (hobbled, tied one up, something) while beating him up. 

So, I have mostly ignored his legs and feet, only really picking the fronts (there are no shoes on the backs for anything to get stuck in), and brushing as far as he'll let me, while I've been trying to gain his trust. 

More Jo spam

I felt like he trusts me reasonably well by this point. I've made some mistakes with him, like accidentally clucking when asking him to back up and then correcting him for it. Oops. I shouldn't have done that because it was my mistake, not his, but I didn't realize what I had done until T called me out on it. But he's been very forgiving of my mistakes because he's not being treated unfairly or being beaten or mishandled.

Since it was outside of my class, I had no real timeline. The session could be as long or as short as it needed to be. So while I groomed him, I worked a bit on his leg threshold. Eventually, I was able to brush all the way down to the coronet on his right front, the fetlock on his left front, and on and around both hocks before he would pick up the foot to move away. Progress, not perfection!

His eyes had softened by the time I got to the hard brush, which is super quick! Once I was satisfied with that work, I put the CA halter on him and brought him into the indoor. I had J check the halter because I was convinced I had not tied it quite right...sure enough, I did it backwards. One of these weeks, I'll get it right and not question myself! But, with his habit of pulling, I really didn't want to have it tied incorrectly and get too tight to remove without cutting it.

The arena was temporarily empty when we arrived, so I took him over to V to start our session. He came out really soft and only pulled very slightly a couple of times. He was a bit stubborn about licking and chewing when I asked him to halt, so he got sent back out a few times, but the softness stayed. 

When he had stopped and licked and chewed in both directions, I brought him over to saddle him. T held him while I worked. I had borrowed the ergnomic girth again, so did all that up and when I dropped the stirrups, he jumped a little, so I smacked the leather against the leather and dropped the iron against his side a few times until I got a big sigh. 

J asked us to go between X and C, so we relocated for our next round of lunging. I sent him off in the opposite direction of how I had started and he immediately started pulling. Asked him to halt, adjusted the saddle back a bit, sent him back out...no pulling. This horse is vocal, if you're listening!

The highlight of this session was tracking right. 

Another horse was coming toward him on the rail and a third was coming up behind him off the rail to pass in between Montee and the other horse. I had a few strides until they crossed his path, so I slowly shortened the lead a bit, expecting his previous reaction, which was to try to get away from traffic. But instead, he completely surprised me. As the horse off the rail approached, he stopped, put an ear on me, and licked and chewed, as if to say, I'm not sure about this, but I trust you to tell me what to do. I praised him like crazy for that HUGE step in the right direction and ended not long after that. 

When I had him stop in the middle, I spent a few minutes rubbing the whip all over his body and letting the end of it dangle over him, around his legs, etc. And then spent a few minutes asking him to soften and yield to pressure on his poll, while also accepting ear scratches! 

When he stopped caring about all of that, I rolled up the stirrups and brought him back over to T to untack him. 

As I was saying goodbye to T a while later, I asked if she had seen how he reacted when Autumn had come trotting up behind him. She hadn't so I told her and I swear she got a little misty-eyed. I said, I'm so proud of him, that is a huge breakthrough!