January 19, 2011 A bigger circle

Rory was very happy to see me at the gate today.  When I called him he came marching over with a little more energy than he usually does. I took him into the barn, groomed and then we went out to the arena for a little longe lesson.  I didn't bother with the saddle today.

In the arena I let him go to see if he wanted to run, but he just nosed around the stuff in the corner (chair, wheelbarrow, pitchfork) while I retrieved the longe whip.  I went and stood in the middle of the arena and after a minute Rory came over and got a bit of carrot.  I snapped the longeline on and when Rory went to walk away he was surprised that we were attached again.  Today's lesson was walk, trot, halt, and out on the slightly longer line - maybe fifteen feet.  For the most part Rory was very good  if a little slow to come down to walk or to halt at times.  His halts when they came were very good as he stayed out on the circle and didn't turn in to me.  I didn't need to use the "out" command very much today.  I kept the session short with several changes of direction.  Once I pushed a little harder than necessary when he was ignoring my trot command and Rory jumped into a canter.

After we finished with the longe I let Rory loose again and he followed me around as I went and scooped up his poops.  On the way back to the barn I was thinking that I'm going to have to be careful not to bore Rory, and to be sure to keep pushing forward in small steps.  It might be time to introduce the side reins to our longeing lessons.