Wonderful Weekend at Trails End

It may not be possible to have a bad weekend at Kerri April's place, Trails End in Leander, Texas near Austin. I always feel challenged to be progressive with my Parelli Natural Horsemanship and supported to do so. And as relaxed and comfortable as Walker feels there, I wish he could be there all the time! It reminds me a lot of how the horses feel and are treated at Starfire barn in Weston, Tx. Anyway, it was a wonderful two days of playing with my horse. And we had some pretty exciting firsts this weekend. Keep in mind as you read this that Walker is a right-brained extrovert, originally ultra spook prone and disdainful of all humans.
First, Walker allowed me to crawl under him at Liberty for the first time ever, and he was perfectly OK with it, did not move or shift his weight, lift up his back feet, nothing. He did not quite know what to make of it, but he had no problem with me under there, and for a horse with big zone 3 issues, this was fun stuff!

Next, Walker got up to his barrel in Kerri's creek. Now, he did bolt out when he got that far, but the fact that he got that far is pretty amazing. Hey, Nancy C., remember Walker's bolt?! We then followed that with walking through a more shallow area that he had had trouble with earlier, and he walked through that area of water with great confidence, so we had another breakthrough there. I love Kerri's Creek, it glistens under the influence of limestone rocks, and the trees surrounding the creek give relief from the Texas heat. It is perfectly situated along Kerri's challenging and varied playground.
Walker followed that with putting all four feet on the horse teeter totter. Thanks to my iPhone, I got a nice picture of that! Now he did not go over it, it still upsets him when it starts to move, but four feet on it is much further than he has ever gone, so happiness was followed by lots of cookies, of course!
Then we started a new task of flank rope circle game. It is done with two 22 foot lines, one attached to the halter, one surrounding the barrel. The idea is to at some point be able to lead the horse with the barrel rope only. Initially, the first rope is shorter, and I used it to lead Walker on the circle, which he did very well. In fact, he actually seemed to like it. It went so well, in fact, that we were able to move to the next step, which is to make the flank rope shorter, so that Walker was being led by that rope, with the halter rope for support. We even made transitions by raising the flank rope to slow for downward transitions. Walker did it all like a champ!
Finally, Walker and I rode bridle-less and bareback (with a bareback pad) at the walk, trot and canter! The upward canter transition was not very smooth, but that had more to do with my lack of confidence bareback riding than anything Walker did or did not do. That is why I have committed to doing a lot more bareback riding to get me passed my fears. 
But perhaps the best part of the weekend was Walker and I demonstrating how to do the circle game at Liberty in the middle of all the other clinic participants and their horses in Kerri's arena. Walker is well on his way to being a Liberty super star.
I have become more aware of how amazing this weekend was thinking about it and writing about it. At one point, Kerri asked us if any of us would sell our horses for $10,000. I love my horse so much, we have had so many wonderful moments together, we have traveled such a difficult road together at times, that I can't imagine selling Walker ever.