Wednesday morning Barokko and I went for a short trail ride alone. He was a little hesitant to go away from the barn all by himself, but after the first few minutes he stopped trying to turn back, pricked his ears forward and off we went exploring ;) Every time something spooked him a little he stayed tense for a while afterward, but in between he relaxed nicely, and seemed to enjoy being out.

Thursday I longed him, and got some very nice round trot work from him. We practiced transitions, he wasn't quite attentive enough to my signals with the other horses out in pasture right on the other side of the arena fence ;)

Friday I gave him the day off, with a couple of hours on the grass pasture. In the afternoon he was playing with M, and somehow got caught in the fence, snapping 6 fence posts and breaking the electric tape :-O Amazingly, he didn't get a single scratch! I hope he'll be a little more careful in the future, might not be so lucky next time :-/

This morning we had our first lesson with our new trainer M, a student of Bent Branderup. I told her I wanted to start over with the basics, I've realized (several times actually, this time maybe it'll stick ;) ) I can't hurry things with this horse, and now that I've accepted that I just want to do it right.

Today we worked in-hand on getting him to lower and stretch his neck, flex and bend left and right at the halt and walk, and gradually send him away from the handler while retaining the bend at the walk. He was slightly less willing to the right than the left, but during the lesson he loosened up, and ended up working eaqually well on both reins.

She said he was a natural ;) I like to get all of the explanations from the bottom up. We'll move forward faster in the beginning than completely green students, but I want to make sure that I get all of the building blocks in place along the way.

After our lesson I put him in the grass pasture with T for 3 hours, have to get him ready for going out 24/7 in a few weeks :D