April 8, 2011 - Lazy man's steering session

I didn't want to longe Rory again today, but I did want to play with him a little bit.  I decided to take his bridle out to the paddock and do some steering practice out there.  He was a little muddy, but I brushed off his head before putting the bridle on.  He took the bit very politely.  We wandered about with Totyo watching closely, and Rory did quite well going to the right.  I was going to quit there took his bridle off before going to get the shedding blade.  On the way back I set the camera on a fence post and turned the video on.  Rory hesitated before taking the bit again, but did accept it.  We practiced steering to the left and I realized that I was starting to introduce the idea of leg means forward as I bumped his side to get him to walk forward.  I deliberately moved my bumping forward on his side to get closer to my future leg position.  The actual leg position was too far forward for right now and confused Rory.

 Rory knows what's coming and he's starting to turn towards me as soon as he starts walking.  Looking for the carrot.  We did several turns on the forehand as I moved towards his bum to send him forward and he kept turning to me for his carrot.  When I started using the longeing "go that way" point he gave up on the turn on the forehand and walked.  Totyo got in the way a couple of times, and I sent him away.  Rory experimented with bending his neck in response to bit pressure and continuing to walk in a straight line instead of turning.  It was a short lived experiment.

After I ran out of carrots I scraped the mud and loose hair off him with my shedding blade.  Totyo got some attention as well, until he got mouthy.