Maraschino's first 4 y/o play

Yes, Maraschino turned 4 last Monday and we hadn't really had any decent play time this week - so today was the day.

He was really good to halter, no resistance at all... and I picked out his feet (tick)... and off we went - the others came too into the middle paddock. We started with Figure 8 and he got a wee bit stuck 'at' each spool. He also ran out to my right when he had the chance too, even just the carrot stick coming a little bit of the ground for him is enough to 'send'.

He went a little introverted for a bit at one point after some 'sends' and practising carrot stick transitions..

I just waited...

From there we tested circle game and got two laps of trot with coming in, then we also did some over the pole on one side of the circle.

While we were at the pole we tried backing over the pole which he got on his third try I am happy to say, and the we worked on draw - I had to crouch down on the ground.

So - his drive is better than his draw right now... mental note...

We squeezed through the gap between the tire and the round pen which I thought was extra cool because the ground was still a bit soft and boggy in the gap.

He's still jumpy with the carrot stick so we played friendly with that for a while...

Then I sat on the outside of the round pen and played 'mount from the fence' but without the mounting - I probably spent 10 minutes just stroking him while he was up close and I was in Zone 3 alongside him. Sometimes he would move me back to Zone 2, so I would wait there a bit then move along the rail more. He eventually relaxed so much he looked like he was falling asleep.

After that some more more circle, some change of direction and we finished there. I was very pleased with him - it's probably the longest play session we've had so far (about 45 minutes all up).

Maraschino checking out an empty birds egg...

Winter Mud

Oh I really dislike mud! It's been really wet this winter.... someone told me in May it was going to be - it was hard to believe after a 6 month drought..... but there you go.... of course with the drought the grass was very thin when the rain did come, and of course now we have extra mud!

So - we have been playing a bit in the washbay on the 'little things'.

Yesterday we played head down with Garbo - he's never really been that good at that particular task... he'll put his head down but then snatch it back up after 1 second... so I just kept persisting until he left his head down for a bit longer..... after a while we actually made some progress.... he must have been getting a bit of a headache (or dizzy) with all that up and down.....

Coco and I have been playing can I lift up your feet? He says yes you can on my back feet but no the front is still too scary..... the look on his face now is so much braver than it was 18 months ago....

I actually patted him on the face 4 times this last week, and he didn't move away, and I gave him a hug!! Around his neck... who would have thought I would have been able to do that one day after seeing him arrive shaking like a leaf a year and a half ago?

This is feed time these days....

Coco pokes his head round the corner.... keeping an eye on the herd leader in the next yard... Garbo is watching him too.

Then almost in the door!

Then Garbo snarls at him....

Oh my goodness - I just used up my 1GB of space with blogger that comes for free... 3 years in 1GB - not bad really - anyway - paid a whole $5 to upgrade to 20GB so I'll be here a bit longer yet folks.