Winning the 7 Games

Back to Stage 1 booklet - Level 2.

Winning the Friendly Game Up until now you've just been 'playing' the Seven Games. Now it's time to 'win' them! To have your horse more respectful and snappier in his responses. Objective - to advance your Friendly Game and encourage relaxation in a more extreme situation. Turn up the heat. See how much more your horse can take without getting upset. Gradually turn up the energy until you can;

• Flap the ground vigorously with your CS and SS
• Do jumping jacks around him
• open and close umbrellas or flap a coat around him
• Skip up to your horse

... do this until he's really desentitised and can stand still with calm confidence totally relaxed, head low. Pretty soon, commotion will be his signal to hurry up and relax!

I have done the first one with the carrot stick and savvy string twice in the last two days now, He is not totally relaxed but getting better.

I also tried running backwards today and getting Garbo to trot to me (that's easy for him - he always wants to come to me) and then I added swapping the carrot stick into the other hand and holding my arms out to the side, and he changed directions, both ways, easily. Hah!