Saddling Filly again

We spent another session with Filly and the saddle. All the sections of the plan up to fitting the saddle proceeded very well despite Filly's friend Moo kicking up a hell of a fuss again when Filly left her sight. Filly was totally unperturbed by this bar the occasional flick of an ear in Moo's direction.
Again we took off the halter and left her at Liberty to make what she would of the saddle. We directed her into walk trot and canter on both reins and this time the only bucks were at canter on her bad rein. All horses have a good and bad direction they like to circle in, it is often a physical difference that causes the variation. In Filly's case this seems likely as she can very confidently canter one way, but the other she seems to have at least five hoofs to control and it can all look a little disharmonious. She'll learn as time passes, but at the moment we just note it and do what we can to help her find her four hooves.
As the canter became confident (if not pretty) on each rein we rewarded her by quietly bringing her down to a halt and relaxing. Ritchie sat on her heels, I just relaxed in my chair.
She got so confident with the saddle she tried to roll with it on which resulted in me being told "she's your horse, you polish the saddle", which of course I did.
We then moved onto Ritchie getting Filly used to having a foot placed in a stirrup and weighting it. This did not go so well and we found a hole in Filly's preparation. In this case the plan gives us the clue and it was clearly the "Standstill" section that needed work. Ritchie worked on getting her foot up and then moving around with her, lifting on the lead rope to stop the drift, until she stood still again, then rewarding by removing the foot. On the occasion when she really moved around Ritchie switched to extreme friendly game until she stood still. In other words, whilst being progressive, we rewarded her "Standstill". It was hot frustrating work for Ritchie, but she persevered until Filly stood still with a fair bit of weight in the stirrup, and then went home for a well needed shower !
It is interesting where holes show up in the training. Bear in mind that in the past I have jumped onto her back from the ground with barely the twitch of an ear, add a saddle and all the strange feeling through her back and she is nervous again. It is so easy to anthropomorphise and assume that as she is ok with me jumping up there she will work out for herself that it is ok for someone to use a stirrup to mount. Of course from her point of view the use of the stirrup and mounting are not connected. They are only connected in our minds because on a subconcious level we project the action forward to a familiar outcome we think she should be able to work out for herself. She doesn't know that this strange twisting load on her back and the toe touching her side are the prelude to someone getting on her, how could she ? In fact she almost certainly has no idea what a saddle is for in the first place, to her it is just a stiff tarpaulin and we didn't climb up on that.
It is this requirement to try to get inside the horses mind that makes Natural Horsemanship so fascinating for me. Trying to see the mundane from her point of view makes the world a much more interesting and sometimes scary place.