Zzzzzz.....

Sleepy time....Harry and his little friend Hummer taking in the early morning sun! Too cute.

Back to school harry!

After having a few months of doing nothing.....pretty much what he's done all his life...Harry was brought back down to reality yesterday with a resounding thud.

Time for action!

We recapped all that was done back in Feb...halter on, turning and leading inside the stable..then ventured outside and leading etc.

All with his little ginga shadow beside him....

The little ginga is a new foal from the 2008 Kaimanawa muster. He belongs to a friend...his blog is http://www.kaimanawahummer.blogspot.com/

Harry ventures outside and learns to lead

Ive only handled harry in the confines of the stable so far, and today we ventured outside. Hes leading in a circle..but never in a straight line for more than a few steps due to the size of the stable.

I opened the stable door, and out we went. It took a while but we managed to travel about 20m and then turn around and come back. The return trip was much faster! He was great and though he walked like a drunk at least he walked on the lead.

Thought he might freak out being *attached* to me out in the paddock, but not at all. He wasn't worried at all, in fact it was no different to being IN the stable.

Im away now for a week so no handling again till next week. Hopefully my chief photographer will be back then too.

Harry meets Yellow

Yellow came home today for a few weeks before he heads south to Wellington. Harry wasn't that interested in him but Yellow decided to make friends anyway. Then promptly proceeded to take a piece out of poor Harry.

That boy needs to grow some balls and bite back...oh thats right, he does have balls...

Free Turning, no lead

Now I know all you folks out there who do your natural horsemanship/parelli/monty roberts/insert other brand name etc... will have a name for this..but anyway, I don't know what it is other than to say my horse has all eyes on me and it was great.

I was able to unclip the lead, and have him follow me round in a circle - kind of a turn on the forehand - in each direction. He then stood quietly at the end while I unclipped him and then he was free to go back out into the paddock and have some hay.

There ends today's lessons! A lot crammed into a 20minute slot! But he was SO good and just took everything in his stride. Go the German Riding Pony Stallion lol!

360 degree turns

Now I decided to turn him a full circle on each rein, without any pressure on the lead. He was so intent on what I was doing, he kept his entire focus on me the entire time. He happily turned around with me and we did two full circles on each rein with no pressure.

Photos

Ok...lots of photos to come, so will try not to write too much dribble and let the pics show what happens. He got a fright from something outside the stable and shot off, but again I caught his head fast and made him turn into me so as not to have myself in his line of fire. He immediately turned and faced me and stood quietly. Then I pulled a little on the lead to edge him forward, and step by step we walked across the stable to the other side. He got a handful of feed as a reward for being a good boy ;-)