Playday

Today was a fun calm day.  I've been trying to nail my mom down for a belated birthday dinner (hers not mine) so I didn't have too much time for barn stuff before beating it back to the city for my (current) all time favorite restaurant. The sun cleared, which was a nice change, and miss P was trotting around the arena enjoying her turnout when I showed up.  "enjoying her turnout" usually means that's she's knocked over anything that she can, and she's removed all the crops from their holder as well as kicked the mounting block clear across the ring.

I decided that maybe I would just chase her a little (read: free lunge) and give her some love/hand grazing.  So I chased her. She ran, we did about 30 minutes of work both directions, but since she doesn't like to walk while free lunging it's hard to cool her out.  Instead of throwing her halter on I just approached her, got her to "latch on" for her ground work and we did a really nice walk cool down that also practiced our ground manners. 

P stuck right with me.  There were some exciting dogs and people running around, so if she started to get distracted I just had to put my hand on her crest to remind her to watch my shoulder and stick close.

She's SO GOOD at her groundwork.  stops, starts, turn away, turn toward, backing up.  She was really tuned in and respectful of my space and movement even though she was halterless.  (what a good girl)

So we just walked around for about 20 minutes cooling out and brushing up.  If we were in a movie it would have been our "bonding-horse-whisperer" moment.  Though I guess that would have required that:
a) she was a wild untamed beast before and not perfectly trained on the ground
b) I had some emotional trauma that prevented me from trusting anything but this one "wild" horse
c) we were out in some huge field on a ranch in Montana (or Wyoming or Kansas..)
and
d) that there was an intense soundtrack dramatizing our progression.

So it wasn't so much "horse whisperer," but it was cute and fun, and everyone else seemed fairly impressed, though that's probably because they didn't know P already knew what she was doing. :) 

It was the perfect sunny afternoon at the barn before a 6 course 4 hour dinner :)
still full I think....