Day 37-38 - Hide and Seek & Finishing Up Intermediate

  Day 37 - Yesterday was Discos last day off, we got to the ranch around 3:00 and picked up my friend Gia on the way. When we got there we haltered all the horses, tied them up, and let Disco loose on the whole ranch. We quickly groomed all the horses and did some light work with them then saddled up as quick as we could. Once they all where all saddled up we worked them in the arena for awhile and I worked with Gia on better riding techniques and we messed around in the there some to. When all our horses where acting good and we had good control of them we went out of the arena and first started walking around, and of course Disco followed us.

Mustang Hide and Seek!

When Disco got ahead of us some we walked around behind a tree and hid there for a minute before he realized his buddies where gone, when he did he came running around the corner and scrunched himself up next to all of us. So we went off again and hid behind a bunch of thick trees, he whinnied, rand around, and came straight through two trees and through all the low branches. We did this for awhile till the Gia and my mom went to put on some bug spray, when they left me and my dad started running around with Disco instead of walking. (it was ALOT more fun but Gia wasn't quite ready for that yet) When we started running around with him he just got so excited and started bucking and tossing his head around, it was really good to see him run again and let him be a mustang again! :) But the coolest thing was that when we got back to the deck and stuff and I got off Texas he just let me walk right up to him and he would follow me around! :D (no halter or anything) Then my dad haltered him up, desensitized him to the plastic bag, and let him go in his corral. That was a fun day!


Great to see Disco healthy and running free again!




  Day 38 - Today was our first day back to work with Disco, we got there around 6:00 but before I worked him I groomed him. I started out doing lunging stage 2 and he was a little hot at first but he quickly calmed down and what ever i asked. I did some side passing, circle driving, and other review with him before starting the last two exercises of Intermediate... Circle Driving Transitions on the long line and Outback Exercise. I had sorta done outback with him but not much so I went back and started again from the teaching stage. In the Outback exercise the goal is to stand still, point at your horse, and he should back away from you. He did it no trouble he was just a little lazy at first so I had to go it and wake him up. But it didn't take long for him to remember and we went through that pretty quick. Then we started Circle Driving Transitions on the long line. The goal of this lesson is to be able to stand at the end of the long line while the horse is going around you in a circle, wiggle the lead rope, and the horse should change gates, stop, or back up. The first time I tried it with Disco he did it pretty good, he was just wanting to yield and face me so have to push his front end away and make him stand there until I asked him to do something else. We also worked some on line driving, like everything else he caught on really quick. So excited that we can get back to work on him! We will probably be able to start advanced in a week!