Back on Track

I invited a close friend to visit Gambler today. I introduced them a while ago . . . but that didn't go so well. Gambler was officially on his worst behavior when she came to see him in August. Now that he has been doing so much better, I figured I'd bring her out to see him again.

He started out really well. I was afraid that we may have lost a lot of ground, since he pretty much had the whole week off. I had no need to worry. His walk, trot, canter was beautiful. He took each gait when I asked it, usually with just the voice cue. Our warm up was pretty much flawless. It was a really spooky day (wind, lawn mower, shooting range) so he did spook once, but nothing major. After he was warmed up we put the saddle on him for the first time since last Sunday.

At first he was pretty much the same, he still wanted to rush and he threw in a little buck here and there. Then some terribly scary thing (I didn't see or hear anything) spooked him and we got some real bucking. Still nothing too crazy. He relaxed right away, but then worked himself into another bucking fit. After the third time, I decided to keep him at a walk. Once he walked a few calm circles in both directions, I took the saddle off again.

I know it looks like he is kicking me in the face, but he's just bucking. He is a lot farther away from me than it looks in this picture.

After I took the saddle back off he relaxed a lot and we did some more circle work, this time without any spookiness. My friend even got to circle/longe him some. He tested her out at first, but once he realized that she wasn't gonna let him walk all over her he listened quite nicely. 

Afterwards I took advantage of the golden hour and got some nice photos.