El spookio grande

Today it was blustery, which meant the hedge along one side of our school was doubly full of monsters. I've got things to a point where if the weather is normal Zorro doesn't worry about it at all but when the wind is up a little he can find it a bit anxious and will fixate on the hedge and refuse to go near it. We've worked on this a lot over the last year and I'm happy that mostly we're fine and on days like today I use it as an opportunity to work on extending his comfort zone, learning to recognise the signs that he's got a plan to go somewhere and on sitting out the spooks when they happen. In that respect it's actually very handy to have a tame spookzone where you can work on that kind of thing without having to worry about being out on the trail or the road.

The highlight of this for me was realising that after a lot of circles and serpentines ( to allow us to get into the scary zone and out again in a safe way and to keep his attention and to stop him getting straight if he did want to scarper ) I was only having to start turning my body to get him turning with me. That was a very nice feeling. Other things he's getting pretty good at include rollback turns and circles on the forehand and quarters under saddle, although the former he tends to throw in as a way to avoid backing up straight. We're also doing pretty well at the going forward then backing up then going forward again without stopping in between. It's all slow and simple stuff but our communication is getting better all the time and with another Tom Widdicombe clinic next weekend I think we're well set to do some interesting things.