On Darcie for the first time!

Only a little bit ... but it's a start.

Going back a bit ...

Ellie and I were desperate to see the horses, so after a big day of putting together kitchen cabinets, off we went.

We had to wait for Bernie to get back because my car is off the road for another day or two, in order to get cheaper third party rego.

So we went up in the Fiesta (again, for me) and drove around looking for Wart. We went everywhere in the big paddock and didn't see him! So we drove back towards the gate and as we came in view of the dam, there he was cantering towards us. He'd spotted us!

We beat him to the gate and got out of it, then gave him his food.

He's so cute the way he blisses out on his feed with half-shut eyes.

Ellie had brought her saddle (Barefoot Cheyenne original model) and bridle (Nurtural bitless) in order to ride Orion.

Our new lead ropes and Darcie's new halter had arrived from Lodge Ropes. The leads even have Darcie and Orion's names embossed in the leather popper at the end, no extra charge. :) Darcie's halter was made to her measurements - also no extra charge. :)

While Darcie was eating I groomed her, rubbed her legs and picked them out, did a bit of "slap and tap", and jumped up and down beside her, and did the same but closer so I was touching her while doing it - and stopped only when she lowered her head or put it into her feed bin.

Ellie tacked up Orion and off they went for a ride. She did a bit of jumping and plenty of walking, trotting and cantering.

I started with Darcie with "desensitise to rope" since we had a new rope, and then did some lateral flexing. Then we practised backing up along the laneway. She is getting calmer about it while still hustling. Also we are getting better at guiding her while backing. We did "tap the air", with air tapping being all she needed, "waggle wave" and she was going on quite a small waggle, and "marching", which she gets a little confused at and thinks sometimes I want her to do LFR and heads off sideways instead of backwards. Also she didn't hustle like she should and got a couple of taps under her chest. I will report though that she was raising her forehand a couple of times while backing up during "marching".

When we got up to the other end of the alley, she was a bit worried about some new electric tape that was up, so we spent some time doing "sending exercise" near and towards it. At first she was rushing through but after about ten minutes or so she walked through calmly. I was giving her some time between each "send" for thinking and for rubbing, and also letting her just look at things on the way through - so a stop and a sniff was fine.

Then we headed towards the arena and Ellie was coming up the other way with Orion. Darcie avoided a pile of branches and leaves from a big branch that had come down and was cut up, so we did some sending exercise next to that, too.

I should mention that she's moving her forehand over nicely to yield space to me now, and also we are doing "changing sides", varying between pointing to start her, and moving her by touching under her jaw, every time I want to change the side I'm working with during desensitising.

(Also I get her to yield her quarter when I want to come up beside her for grooming.)

Somewhere in there we were doing circle driving too. I do a bit of circle driving most times we lead places now. It just fits in.

There was a lady lungeing a very "Araby" Arabian in the arena as we headed down towards it. He looked very nice and striking with his high head and tail and Araby trot.

Darcie was a bit leery of a bit of shadecloth that had been thrown over some stuff so we did sending exercise near that, too. Then same again as we walked past the outside of the round yard, for some reason.

That seemed like a great place to do sending exercise, but Darcie started rushing, and also not yielding her quarters easily. I swatted her quarters to get them around better, but she was rushing even more.

I could have kept going with sending, like we'd done before, but instead we switched to LFR stage 2, asking for changes of direction with a roll-back over her hind end, to get her thinking more about me and less about what was around her. Have not done LFR 2 for a while. We are not perfect at it, but better than the last time we did it. There were some nice roll-back turns there. I was finding that moving towards her a few times as she turned, as it shows on the video, was helping her to roll back with her weight back, instead of moving in towards me.

By the time we'd done that, Darcie was quite sweaty and blowing (so was I! But not as much as her).

A perfect time to do desensitising. I started with "run up and rub" but soon turned it to "jump like a kangaroo towards her and rub". That went well, even when I banged into her on the last jump, or trod accidentally on a hoof. I did it from the front, and then gradually angled it around until I was coming from the side.

I need to start doing it from behind more, as she tenses a little when I suddenly come from behind or beside-behind. She's good from the side so that should go OK.

The Arabian was coming out of the arena as I was finishing up with that, and Darcie wanted to look, so we switched to lateral head flexing.

From there I was bouncing up and down beside her, and rubbing my body on her as I did it, and it was a natural progression to allow my weight to come up and over her back. Only for a half second at first, and then progressed to about five seconds. It was getting dark so just a little was fine. She handled it well - she was a little concerned but stayed still, and the more I did it, the less concerned she was.

I was using her mane to help with my jump, with the left hand, and hooking my right forearm around her wither to help with leverage. It was most likely that which caused the tension more than anything else as I'd not done that before. But she got used to it fast.

I then moved her over and started on the off side but was hopeless at jumping up on that side. I could do it once but I am much better on the near side - that's the side I jumped up on during all my childhood and teenagerhood. So didn't manage to get more than a hint of weight on her when jumping from the off side, but did do lots of floundery jumping and landing all down her side and a bit over her back.

I'm going to need a mounting block to get weight on her from the off side. So some mounting block training is coming up. :)

On the way back to the paddock we did some more circle driving, and also I started teaching her inside turns.

One thing I noticed was that after doing the LFR 2 she was much quicker to put her head down and just quietly have it rubbed. Sometimes she moves her head around - something that started after she got it injured that time.

Another thing I'm not sure about is what to do when she tries to mouth the stick when I'm rubbing her forehead with it. When she puts her nose up to mouth it, it's hard to keep rubbing on her forehead. What I'm doing is ignoring and continuing the rub, and then when she puts her head down, stopping with the stick and starting with my hands, or just leaving it for a little bit.

Anyway, exciting! I've been on my horse! Only the tiniest bit, but it's a start.

I was so excited that I rang Cin, my friend, to tell her - HAD to tell SOMEONE that would appreciate it! (I'd probably told Ellie as many times as I could without driving her nuts ... and she'd been there to see it.)

It was only a tiny thing but it's a step between doing ground work and ridden work. It's the transition.