The horse whisperer came back

Have had a great day today, with Adam Shereston again, all about connecting with the horse by sychronising your movement to theirs and asking them to move when it's easiest for them..

We started off in hand, leading them, watching how their legs moved and only asking them to turn when the leg on that side was off the ground, so it was easy for them. So if you want to lead your horse left, wait til his left foreleg is leaving the ground, then ask for the turn.

Then we mounted up and did the same from the saddle, moving our shoulders & hips in time with the horse's movement and asking for the turn when the horse's leg was off the ground.

We also worked on stopping, and he wanted us to do it without pulling on both reins, but by raising and gathering one rein each side as the foreleg on that side came up, to shorten the stride and eventually get the stop

You can use the same technique to alter their speed, Fina tends to rush a lot so he showed us how to slow her down

He spent a lot of time working with Jane and Ocarina on this as she gets very anxious if you pull on her reins. He had her going nice and softly after a while.....

So plenty there for us to work on :-)

He also did a bit on catching Polo, who is usually very wary of strangers, didn't take him long to get him to trust though.....