When he unloaded he was hyper alert and as each minute passed he got worse. He was looking around at the other horses and then the dog spooked him; then the cat spooked him, then Kim's partner Richard spooked him. Even some imaginary spooky thing spooked him, I just couldn't work out what it was!
Thankfully Kim was there to show me some techniques to relax him. They were simple exercises but they worked a treat. Within about 10 minutes he had his head low and almost looked like he was ready to go to sleep. I got a demo from Kim and then took over myself and we worked through his anxiety together. Great and simple methods that can be done anywhere.
Next I saddled him up and Kim taught us how to keep his mind on the job and stop spooking at anything he was unfamiliar with while in the saddle. He was no were near as tense as he was initially but having a rider on him ramped it up just a touch so we worked through that in no time. It didn't take long in the saddle for him to relax, and I mean the kind of relaxed that resulted in no head tossing! Next we were in a trot and he just wasn't consistent so I was taught how to work on him getting the consistency we need. I would say we were half way there by the end of the lesson.
What could have been an nightmare wasn't a bad trip at all and I will be using those relaxation techniques before we start any work together.
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