Neglecting Star

So, the Colonel mission continues. Star has gotten no work at all lately. I haven't posted in a while and its starting to blur together in my memory. My two top priorities are getting The Calm and getting him to stop pulling on me. My side goal, which will become my main goal once I've got calm and self-carriage, is straightness. I too am going to need to pull out the arena exercises book, for the straightness part.

Going outside has been interesting. We went past the giant new gate/monster that the neighbor had installed. Its still got lots of little orange flags all over it, flapping in the breeze. I assume they function as a mating display to attract other gate-monsters. Colonel and I had a long discussion about whether or not we would be going past that thing. Ultimately after some backing up, some bolting/spinning and a lot of standing around, we decided that we would sidepass all the way down the line until we were clear of it. Seemed like a good comprimise to me. I got to keep his nose on the path, he got to keep his giant rear-end out of harm's way.

We also went through some water. Colonel is so cute and strangely calm going through the water. He splashes a lot and stares at his hooves when we go through the stream. Its his happy place in a world of terrors. Outside the water he is a prancy, trotting bastard.

In the arena, on the pulling front, things have gotten interesting. He seems to understand that casual pulling is not OK. So now he pulls only when he is fed up and feeling rebellious. Its like radiation hardening, but maybe thats not a joke for this crowd. I've upped the anti now. When he really bears down, he gets little half-halts on the reins while I hold my hands high. The more he irritates me the higher I go.

I'm also going to do some long line stuff with him. He needs to work on his transitions, particularly his trot to canter, and his trot to walk. Robert and I talked about (and I think I posted about) some long lining strategies for this guy. Hope it works out.

Sorry for the delayed, crummy, post; but its bed time, and I want to start fresh tomorrow with my usual style logs.