First Longe of 2017!

Tess got a week off due to the Holidays: and the timing was pretty good, as I was able to squeeze in a Christmas Eve afternoon barefoot trim appointment (he was going straight from us to do mini donkeys, LOL!) and dose her with ThrushBuster before I headed to see the family for Christmas, so that gave her time to heal up that cut heel and get back to 100% sound.

Hi.

Tess was SO happy to see me today (like nuzzle me to pieces happy ;) and for having quite a bit of time off, she was very well behaved. The horse behind her in the cross-ties was getting shoes - so there was a lot of sizzling and smoke - Tess kept turning her head back to look, and the farrier laughed, "yeah it sure does look like he is on fire!"  We worked on the "Stay" command and ground tying (I like it better than cross-ties) and then we headed up to the arena to longe.

There was a beginner lesson in progress, as well as one of the stallions in the ring, so we did a lot of hand-walking until the ring cleared out. She had 2 good spooks, one as the stud was piaffing next to her, and one as a horse was being disciplined on the longe (she's never gonna be a fan of cracking whips) but after that I could see the hamster wheels turning after that and she thought about spooking, but waited for sugar instead :)

Then we longed: 5 minutes each way trot and canter with one side-rein and the longe looped through the bit and snapped onto the girth. The goal is to get her taking more contact, and to work up to it. She sure did look fancy and SOUND.

2017 is off to a great start!