Highs and Lows...

I got to tape Wendy's Level 2 Freestyle assessment last Sunday, and I think it went really well. So well, in fact, we only taped it twice, and I think either one would have gotten her that blue string. We should find out in about 2-3 weeks what the official word is, but for what it's worth, I believe Wendy is now clearly a Level 3 student. 

She and Bingo have come so far, it's been fun to see their progress. He is such a challenging horse, always testing the human for their level of leadership, but I don't think Wendy would have had as much fun or progressed as far with her horsemanship with a less provocative horse. Now she gets to apply her knowledge to Maverick, which is great for him and me.

Unfortunately, Maverick developed another hoof abscess, which bummed me out, but as Wendy is good about reminding me, things could always be worse. Of course, she's right every time she tells me, but it's always good to be reminded.

So we are back to a regimen of wrapping the hoof with animal lintex every day until the abscess resolves itself. Last time took three weeks, but I am being optimistic in thinking this one won't take as long. 

The great thing about the Parelli program is that even when your horse isn't 100%, there are always things you can play with that aren't stressful physically, but still challenge your horse emotionally and/or mentally.

With that in mind, I started asking Maverick to back up by the tail, a form of the Porcupine game. We played with it for the third time today, and he is really getting it fast. It only took one minute of playing with it today for him to get it with the rope completely slack from both the left and right. 

We also are playing with walk/trot transitions on the circle, and this task is taking a little longer, but what I noticed today was that he was not reactive to the carrot stick coming at him. At first, he still thought it meant to go faster, not slower. Today, I still needed the rope to remind him to slow down, but he did it much more quickly and calmly. Again, we didn't do much as I did not want to stress his abscessed hoof, but he's getting a little better every time we play with it. 

Having said that, I can't wait to ride him again. We had such a wonderful passenger lesson at the walk and trot before the abscess, I am looking forward to seeing how he improves when we do it again.