Nettles was visited by his owner, Diana, today and her friend Nic and her family. Nic has taken a keen interest in Nettles and visited him regularly as well as doing some leading with him in his field at home. Today I demonstrated and therefore consolidated the work we have done on long reins and short reins and little Nettles just excelled himself. In time we will need to find him a suitable home and I just hope he finds somewhere where he will be absolutely loved and treated very kindly.
Short-reining, normally undertaken with short reins (!), is just such a wonderful way of training a pony to accept the aids, the presence of a physical contact on his body, and control of his speed and direction. Nettles has taken to it like the proverbial duck.
Desensitising him to sudden movement on either side - I'm practising my Pilates on the move.
After this we all went out on the Forest and I had two very willing assistants. You might ask, "How many women does it take to long-rein a pony?!"
Later you might have wondered what all the excitement was about. The horses queued up behind the trailer and cavorted around the field. All this because....
... Lottie moved paddocks.
