Arthur was a bit "off."
In Arthur terms, this means everything is out to get him. Saturday started with him being tied to his tree. I moved my arm and he reared and pulled back so we began desensitizing to waving things, running things, scary things that a human can do (bunny hopping!), and anything that I could do with myself and a rope. He ended the session standing still but not as relaxed as I would like. We tacked him up an hour or so later and let him stand still. When it was his turn, I worked on his groundwork and he did decent for him. I don't like his slight movements but he is fully relaxed while it is happening so I feel we're dealing with him anticipating but not thinking things through. So basically this was a "break the trust, rebuild the trust" sort of day.
Sunday started out great. Well, until Katy decided to rear up... and over while being groomed. (Seriously what was WITH this weekend!). Naturally Arthur thought everyone was dying and he too reared up and back. Both horses broke their lead ropes and so had to be re caught. Awesomesauce.
Once more tied up (Arthur in Katy's spot and she in his this time for her sake), we got to work. Arthur was last to go and was a rock star all day despite the start. He was really laid back (almost to the point of not paying attention... sigh) and did great when I did his groundwork. We've been adding in a jump where he goes next to it, around it, I stand on it, anything I can think of. Since I suck at working him constructively from a fence, I worked him from an 18" cross rail. He ended up straddling it while I rubbed him down from "above" and he was relaxed and engaged about it all. I decided to pop Erica on him and try for a boring repeat of last time.
The mounting block was again an issue but he worked through it with me simply standing on his offside. Erica systematically worked through getting on him and he was aware but good for it. Until he decided that this was boring and wanted to eat grass. UGH! I kept reminding him of his "job" and he'd go Oh, Right! and pay attention again. I made sure he was aware when she tried to get on and his head raised somewhat when she finally sat down and fixed her stirrup on the offside. His head went right back down though and all was well. I moved out in front of him and then... it happened.
A slow motion oh crap sort of thing.
First steps were fine, then he was less fine, then fine, then NOT FINE. Since he's trusting me so much, I had 16.3h of scared baby traumatized horse coming at me while I tried to protect my rider. Erica was unbalanced away from me and with Arthur turning towards me I was out of options. She flew off, landing on her shoulder/neck but was moving immediately. Arthur flexed to a halt and immediately began relaxing. Erica was "fine" and got up quickly. We were both puzzled and went through the pre flight checklist. Naturally I had a dog training client show up right about that time, so I handed him to Erica to being checking out his issues.
After my training session, Erica had returned and simply said "I had spurs on." While relieved that there was a "reason" I was worried about my rider, frustrated about the idea that I had another thing to add to my million issues list (not that it wasn't on there already), frustrated that I let this happen (not that I had a ton of control but I could have done more groundwork or something), and grumpy about the future with Arthur. Erica was fine though and Arthur was readily back to dopey relaxed baby horse so I got over it and decided that we have to work some more.
Things on my to do list:
- Fix the shifty foot thing
- More "scary" and "unpredictable" human things mixed with desensitizing - aka spurs
- Work on trot poles/interesting distractions/problem solving to help with boredom
- A million other things and trust building
- Not kill my rider
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