Too much excitement

Had a wonderful short ride on Maddie this morning.  She is able to canter a 10m circle now in my small arena and her overall impulsion is improving.  That sticky half-pass to the right is starting to free up.  I'm really pleased with her progress.  It's really gratifying to have her at home now where I can do quick schooling sessions and work on small, fun stuff.

Last week Maddie reverted a little bit in her overall comfort level here.  I was working in the pasture behind her and startled her, causing her to bolt and jump out of her mud lot!  She took a bit of the fence down with her and gave herself a small scrape underneath her left shoulder.  She went 10' and stopped to eat grass.  For the rest of the day she was nervous and I felt a little discouraged.  Previous to this I had been letting her graze near the house and in the side yard, and I thought she was really learning how to be a quiet domestic horse.

To help things out, we put Sebastian back in the front pasture where they would be divided by a single low fence.  This is two weeks out from Sebastian's gelding and he seems less interested in getting to Maddie now.  Anyway, he did his job of calming down Maddie and she is now back to her old self.  We are thinking that they can be together pretty soon.

I have been goofing off with a tarp hanging over into Maddie's mud lot.  She is able to be directed through it very well and it did not take much work.  I think there is something brilliant about a hanging tarp: the solution is for her to 1) lower her head and 2) go forward.  This is pretty much exactly what I want my horse to do when it is scared of something.  Yesterday evening I hopped on bareback and we rode together through the hanging tarp, and this morning I was able to get her to back up through the tarp (from the ground).  This is fun quiet work and I really think it will make her a better horse.  For this kind of thing I just grab her for 5 minutes when I am walking past the barn and quit when she makes a little progress.

I was lucky to make an acquaintance with the EMM phenom Obbie Sholm over facebook this week.  (http://www.obbieschlom.com/)  Obbie offered to give me some advice about Maddie and we spoke over the phone for about 10 minutes yesterday.  Obbie gave me some of the same advice Byron did concerning Maddie's spookiness: She needs a lot of experience (shows, travelling, etc)  to get over it, and I need to wait for her to come back to me when she spooks.  All mustangs have an advanced self preservation mode, and Maddie just has a  little more than her fair share of it.  Anyway, i was blown away at Obbie's offer of help and very grateful to be able to consult with her.  Obbie will be competing next year at Road to the Horse and Maddie & I wish her the best of success.