Today I was asked to work with a five year old ex-racehorse who has taken to wafting his back feet around when his owners go to pick them up. He's got quite a good cow kick in there too and he's successfully keeping them at bay. Physically he still needs to put more weight on (he was particular poor when they got him and it seems to take as long for a thin horse to put weight on as it does a fat one to lose it) and to develop some muscle so I can't rule out that it may be uncomfortable for him to pick his feet up. I suspect that he has never been taught to pick his feet up nicely and that he was probably manhandled to get his feet trimmed and shod when he was in training. That invariably means that he was grabbed and had his feet wrenched up high. So we worked on desensitising his back legs first of all and then giving a clear set of signals about what we wanted him to do this entails squeezing his leg until he picks it up rather than pulling at it until it gives. Once the foot is up, the handler holds the toe rather than the fetlock and this gives the horse a lot more balance. At the front, nstead of tying him up, where he has 360 degrees around a post to move away or threaten to kick, he was held on a lead rein instead so that if his feet waved about, his bottom could be turned away pretty promptly. It took a few goes but he started to get it and to understand that we didn't want him to lift his leg high up off the ground - at the moment, just a few inches will do.
Got back in time to give Jack his sixth walk of the week. I gave all the horses some hay and then discovered that Jack was waiting at the door to the round pen (which I have used to keep a dry area outside the feed shed) implying that I should hurry up with the clicker bag and the headcollar so that we can go for our walk. He can't be bothered with that dry grass stuff when there are adventures to be had. He followed me over to the field gate where headcollar was put on in about two seconds flat and then off we went onto the open Forest. This time we went down the drift way to the side of the inclosure and Jack jumped over a rail which had been left up at the pony pound and negotiated some rather sticky mud as we followed the track. In fact, we looked like two drunks trying to hold each other up at this stage as we used each other as a walking stick. Got to the bottom and crossed over the Three Bill Goats Gruff wooden bridge before negotiating a series of streams which Jack either jumped or walked through with alacrity. Then it was up through the woods bending down for the low bits and jumping over a few logs before jumping the really big log just outside the inclosure. Next we went over the massive ditch stream (which most horses say no to on their first confidence walk) and then up to the inclosure gate. In the inclosure, checking that there was no-one about, I unclipped him to test whether he would stay with me. Apart from grabbing a couple of mouthfuls of marsh grass and a bit of a fir tree, he stuck pretty close and we walked and trotted all the way up to the top and back to the field. Such such fun!!
