Sooo I was wrong...

On my last blog post I talked about what great progress Buck and I had made.  I said that it would take a lot of work and time to be able to ride brideless in an uncontrollable environment (because that is honestly what I thought).  Tonight, Buck proved me entirely wrong, and then shoved it in my face a little bit!

Today my mom bought me a dressage crop (or training crop, whichever you want to use.  It's a 3 foot long, skinny stick basically).  We thought it may be a good idea to see how Buck would react to a smaller, harder to see object rather than using the carrot stick.  I've been wanting to be "smaller" in my movements when I ask him to do something, and the dressage crop would help make the transition.  I first started out putting Buck through his paces on the ground.  Side passing, rotating on the front and back, and backing up and coming back to me were a piece of cake.  The dressage crop seemed to make no difference, although I could tell he recognized something was different.  I decided to try riding him brideless again in our dry lot area to see if he had processed the idea of it a little more.  He sure did!  I stepped out on the ledge and chose to use the dressage crop instead of two carrot sticks to see how he would respond...even better than with the carrot sticks!  LESS really is MORE!  We were trotting around and weaving in and our of our fruit trees within minutes.  I asked my mom if she would walk around the block with us (for safety seeming how it would be his first time in a situation like that).  She said yes so off we went!  I had my Savvy string around his neck and the crop in one hand.  My mom walked behind us the entire time.

It was amazing.  Cars passing by? No problem!  Sprinklers going off on both sides of the road at one time?  Easy!  Little kids running up to him?  Loved it!  Lighting and three other horses calling for him?  They weren't even there!  Buck had his head dropped and was actually stretching out his neck for the whole ride.  His bottom lip was floppy and his ears were forward.  Talk about a happy horse!

Buck had obviously processed from our first time riding brideless on Friday.  His anxiety has plummeted and he is responding to me better than when I have ridden him in anything else.  The things Buck and I will accomplish in this next year are beyond me.  I have told people that he continues to surprise me every time I work with him.  

I'm actually kind of sad to be leaving for ten days in August.  Going to Africa will be AMAZING, but I'm going to miss Buck and working with him nightly...hopefully he won't be too upset at me...or maybe it will just make him miss me ;)