Confidence Lesson – 7/11/09

Today I was joined by a good friend Claire H to carry on our sessions with building her confidence on and around horses after a serious fall in America a year or so ago. Once again Dougal’s wonderful temperament shone through as he helped me work with Claire using approach and retreat to build her confidence both in playing on the ground and when in the saddle. We also did lots of friendly game – Dougals favorite ;)

Today Claire even managed to walk around without me holding him or even being next to him!!! This is HUGE!! And I am so proud of her!

Thank you Dougal for being such a perfect partner today.

I then hoped on him and played some provocative games in the saddle using transitions, change of diction, flying changes and sideways, as we wanted to end the session with him having had some fun and feeling like a winner!

Afterward I got Bella out and played with her. She was fine online, if a little grumpy, but when I got on she decided she didn’t fancy trotting thanks very much! So we played some point to point with me asking her to walk and trot REALLY SLOWLY and she was soon offering a nice working trot ☺ Oh how I love Reverse Psychology!!