Played with Filly first. She was not in a sleepy mood today at all, but very disrespectful. Touch all over in the flank area again difficult and the teat area got pretty violent. However with gentle persistence we got to the point where there was no tail swishing. I did use a bit of clicker training to achieve this. Whenever she stood quietly I clucked with my tongue and she got a small piece of carrot.
Placing the feet was as usual with her very good.
I then moved onto the prepare to ride part concentrating again on getting good circles with no nagging on my part. She was very difficult about this, and the feel she gave me was of disrespectfully pushing the boundaries.
Well respect is important for me so I had to up my game, but it required patience. I waited until she tried to give a cheeky little kick and then, much as a fellow herd member would do, put her in her place with a sharp rap with the savvy string on the leg that she kicked with. An instant change in the dynamic. She came to me respectfully, without trying to bite or push. She became much more obedient to the slightest aid, and actually looked as though she was more content.
I have had to do this before and had a similar result, but the truth is that I HATE having to give such a sharp correction.
I guess I have to bury my feelings a bit in order to get respect and rapport with the Filly. As Pat says in one of his videos, if you are playing tag with someone and they never actually try to tag you then you are not fun to play with and respect goes. I guess I was guilty of being the damp squib in the game and she decided to see how limp I really was.
Next up was Billy. I had it in the back of my mind that today I MIGHT be able to get on him and so came armed with my hat and Ritchie. Everything went exceptionally well and soon I was stood on the mounting block with Billy actually pushing into my legs gently. I started with just lying on him with no reaction at all. Next attempt I swung my legs up as in the blurry photo on the previous post and lay there until he was yawning and his spine was getting painful to lie on. Then I tested throwing a leg over but not actually getting on, he just looked a bit bored.
With no real decision on my part I got on. It just felt the right moment. His head briefly came up but soon relaxed as I pretended to be a sack of potatoes and relax on his back. After a time I asked for a lateral flexion by putting gentle pressure on the lead rope (yes he was bareback with only halter and lead rope). He misinterpreted this as the cue to back up and did so for two or three paces. No criticism on my part, I just have to train the lateral flexion better, he did what he thought I had asked.
After a while I dismounted, he turned and put his head into my chest and breathed deeply completely relaxed.
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