03/09/11 horsework

On Monday I got Zues out and put an old hand braided hackamore set on him and took some pictures. He looked cute in it, and as I thought it barely fit him. I put Barts old Davis splint boots on him, they are too big for both horses,and the surcingle with crupper. In the round pen I turned him loose to work with elbow pull on. He is getting very good about bringing his head to the side and lowering it for the bridle. I had it very loose and had him walk around. He is such a smart sensitive horse he right away lowered his head and was very quite in the mouth. I have decided to not use a cavason or nose band, so I can observe if he is uncomfortable. He did well and I asked for a trot and that went fine although his head did go up as high as he wanted it. We changed directions and repeated the work and all was well. I have found that Zues always throws something extra in every time I work him. (Smile) I watch for it and I am always very interested to see how he will test me, it is never the same way.Since he was born in our back yard, and I was the first person he met, we know each other very well. I was happy with the 15 min of work we did and was asking him to "whoa" and walking forward toward his head to help remind him to stop, when he suddenly did a cutting horse move and rolled over his hocks and bolted the other direction, tossing his head and giving a snort as he cantered merrily around!I sighed and watched him, thinking it was late in the afternoon, with dark clouds and a strong cool breeze blowing. Great! He has a winter coat and will end up all sweaty and itchy, so I will bath him in warm water, scrape the tar out of his coat and towel it then blanket and feed him in his 16x16 box stall that opens into the round pen for a run. Goodie! lots of extra work for me!I let him zip around and then began cutting him off every 1/2 circle and for a big 4YO Friesian gelding he can do a pretty neat rollback! I kept talking to him and repeatedly cut him back and forth until he stopped and faced me. I almost got a hand on the halter when he bolted away , now I was getting fed up! I stood still in the center and he cantered and did a high stepping trot, I turned him about every 5 laps,until the trot slowed and his head lowered to the ground asking to stop, after a couple more laps with a low head I called "whoa " and he did! So after some time walking(he was not breathing that hard but sure did sweat up) and the warm bath etc I made a note to myself. (Lounge Zues on lonuge line, and confirm walk trot and eventually canter!)