We have a big storm rolling through this week, so I figured I’d better get out there and see Steen today just in case the roads are inaccessible for the next few days. I found him in a snowy pasture. The herds were a bit riled. I’m not sure if it was the weather or what but everyone was moving around a lot more than usual.
Doc and Chase playing… chase.
This was right before Steen galloped up the hill with a glad whinny to meet me. (OK, maybe I’m exaggerating a little.)I brought Steen indoors and he remained riled up, so I decided to just do a day of groundwork. I hadn’t done that in a long, long time, and it was actually pretty fun. We did work both on the line and off, and he was really well behaved while managing to stay a little antsy the whole time.
We worked for about half an hour, then I took him back and went to get Doc.
This is Doc.Doc is my first paying equine student. He and his owner Gail want to learn how to do the things Steen and I do on the ground, so I’ve been giving the two of them lessons. Today I intended to work with Doc alone but Gail’s out-of-state trip got canceled so she came as well.
It is quite interesting to work seriously on groundwork with a horse other than Steen. Doc is younger (five) and much mellower in his general personality, but he’s also more dominant and less sensitive, so I’m curious to see how he takes to learning and perfecting the same exercises. I intend to video some of our lessons, so hopefully I’ll be able to share our progress.