When You Realize… She’s Pretty Much Bombproof

A couple months back, I enlisted the training and help of our good friend Vivian Jones of Sky Fire Horsemanship for a few months while I regain my confidence. Some of the main areas needing improvement included Gracie’s ability to lunge, her ground manners (being pushy/too in your pocket at times), and potential spookiness (due to not being exposed to much).

Today I joined Vivian for some trust exercises, including various large, loud, or just plain odd objects being waved around Gracie’s face. We played with an umbrella (opening, closing, twirling, you name it), pulled a sled, and even dipped our toes into  a kiddie pool. Vivian is great at coming up with all kinds of random things to expose horses to.

When she first started stepping in with Gracie’s ground training, we worked a bit with the tarp – just the sound of it nearby, and then walking over it. Gracie was a bit apprehensive about it then, but was well behaved and walked over the tarp with encouragement.

So today, you see that she doesn’t mind it at all! She was completely fine not only having it draped over her entire body, but also with it being waved around on her, making that oh-so scary crinkling sound.

I think it’s safe to say she’s on her way to becoming a very bombproof little filly! Great job, Vivian!