Battery recharge

I was at Taking the Reins in Madison last weekend, where I was thrilled to watch multiple clinics and experience the first ever Wild Ass challenge.  What a great, informative weekend.  While waiting for the Wild Ass challenge to start I was dumbfounded to see John Lyons standing a few feet away from me, so I walked over and introduced myself.  I was even more dumbfounded when we spent the next 25 minutes talking horsemanship together!  He was genuinely interested to hear about Maddie and gave me some very good advice, most of it boiling down to the necessity of keeping Maddie in my world, and not letting Maddie take me into her world.  Mr. Lyons did a two-day colt starting clinic with 8 horses, and I was able to watch all of this and also talk horses with his two sons, Josh and Michael.  What a nice family.

Equally informative and helpful were the clinics of Ray Ainsworth and, especially, Dan James.  Dan was doing a two-day beginning liberty clinic with several horses and their owners.  Dan is a magician with liberty training and horse training in general.  I have spent the last week doing these exercises with Maddie as a way to increase her focus on me.  This morning I let he off-line for the first time and she was mostly able to stay with me.  The right side was a little trickier but I managed to get nice circles at the walk and trot on both sides.  There is no doubt that it is helping Maddie and my horsemanship.

The bow is coming along, I can get bows now with the whip alone.  I also introduced the pedestal, which she  basically figured out for herself in about 30 seconds.  Lots of fun!