Basil Update and Tommy Ideas!

I blame it on myself for last week's blog about Basil's Shake No More Gold!  Having reached July RAO episode free I thought we had success.  5 days later I had to call the vet out. 

He is feeling better following an injection but having already had several weeks off work because he was foot sore he is now going to have a couple of further weeks to recover :(  

So, I have been looking at one of the books I had for Christmas 'Training and Riding with Cones and Poles' by Sigrid Shope.  

 

I really should take Tommy into the arena and see what he thinks of doing a bit of ground schooling.  My ground schooling history is practically zero, I have good intentions but they never really come to anything so I am not going to make any grand claims here but I might try to get Tommy near a pole!

I think that he and I have reached a good place.  This morning I was standing next to his stable door talking to the farrier and he put his head on my shoulder.  He is really sweet and I think now feeling more confident of things if he is by my side.  So now would be a good time to try something new .

So I got my book out - I had plans with Basil too - to see if anything would work with Tommy.  I don't have any cones at the moment so will have to start with the poles.  Initially Tommy will have to look at a pole as I am not sure that he has seen one before, and he has only been in the arena a couple of times loose so that will be new too!

However, I think there are a few we could try. This first one involves asking the horse to step over a pole one leg at a time, basically halting after each leg steps over, and waiting to be told to move the next.  Tommy and I have established some commands so this MAY work.

 

The idea is that you can do this when riding too, but I am not sure that Basil would achieve this!


The next exercise is turning within a fancy arrangement of poles.  Tommy is really good at turning so as soon as he is not afraid of the poles I think he will be brilliant at this.  Basil would be good at this too, even if I was riding - I know this because Basil has always been brilliant for me to open gates when I am on top.

The last exercise which I think I might try once we have got the others sorted is nearly lunging ....

... when the poles are arranged like this it is called a fan.  I think that this would be quite a fun exercise to do leading Tommy and riding Basil.  

I am pleased with this book, I need to get some cones so that I can try the other exercises but really just need to get organised to set the poles out before Basil and I want to school, rather than thinking about it after we start!

Have you seen yesterday's video 'Egg Count Day'  on my You Tube channel.   
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Until next time!

Jo