Liberty Lovely.

Oh my goodness... I got some lovely liberty trot circles on the edge of the round pen today from Garbo - first time ever!!!!!

I hadn't tried much liberty lately but until now I have never tried liberty apart from in a large arena or a large paddock!! He's never had the security of the round pen, either online or at liberty. I heard LInda say it's nice to use the round pen as they have a boundary initially - and I have just realised what a help it can be. Hmmmmm.

Also - I added some barrels.... and Garbo could not stop playing with them so my hunch was right - he was bored. The 7 games were becoming the 7 tortures!

I am so busy focussing on the fact that he has never really done nice relaxed many laps at canter on the 22+ circle that I forgot to add obstacles in as well.

So initially I made a small gap between the two - we are leading up to jumping the barrels - they are quite tall as you can see. Garbo stopped and moved them with his nose - everytime. And you know it kept him out on the circle because they were by the railing. I worked on getting him to go through them without pausing LOL - that was a challenge in itself - as it was obviously too much fun moving them round. He really is so much more confident with some things now.

Then I took the rope off and I got the most gorgeous relaxed trot circles on the 30ft point, at liberty that I have ever had. Boy I was pleased. I even did a successful change of direction (after two attempts) at liberty!

Clever boy.