Chance in Harness.

As stated before in a post about Chance, he was trained in harness/cart about 2+ years ago. He was still young and wasnt really feeling it then so the trainer or Donna and Kevin, didnt push it. Donna, along with most people, have told me to get him back into it again and after playing with Skye, I decided it was fun so why not.

Yesterday Donna and I set out to line drive him. He was pretty chill about getting the equipment back on and even took the bit just fine. Then he figured with all this junk on him he couldnt walk. It took some convincing but finally he decided to walk out to the arena. In the arena after he had walked some he decided he could walk with someone driving behind him. -And of course we forgot to grab a whip for some forceful  encouragement.- Donna walked beside his head, I driving from behind. When Donna let go of him head well, *lets turn around and look at how pretty Miranda is trying to keep up with his butt spinning around*. After sometime Donna took over driving and I went to fetch a whip. This made a huge difference. Tho Chance was walking forward, stopping when asked, and turning decent, he was tense and a little worried. We ended on a good note and untacked.

Today, Chance was a champ with everything I asked of him. The girls I babysit, C (9) and K (11) wanted to go riding Pippi and play with Chance. Pippi was fine, she normally just follows me or when they get brave they walk her around on their own and make her listen to them. They must be getting use to her and all bc she kinda tested their steering today. Chance on the other hand was great. I really noticed how different he is in just the 1.5 ish years I have been working with him. Girls said to trot and starting trotting beside him and he trotted off, girls sped up, he sped up, girls took him to a jump and he went over it like no problem with no pulling afterwards. I was so happy. This is the horse that use to drag me around, decide he would hot trot everything and at all times and was just a brat.

This afternoon when I went down to drive him he was great again. Our steering had improved and we were no longer fighting each other as much. He walked off mostly when asked, turned nicely, and wasnt nearly as tense. YAY! Now I dont know much of drive, just basically the basics from watching Donna and playing with Skye. But we are learning together (tho really he knows this it is just a reminder for him). Mom came down and even got some video, so without further ado.....

Very happy with him. Hopefully we can attach something to him to pull (besides a cart bc he will kick the shit out of it) and see how he does with it. Clipping for the next show starts tomorrow tho :p