Lalo came out today and we spent about 90 minutes working Maddie together. He was still very concerned about her ear pinning and immediately got on her case about it. LOTS of aggressive backing and yielding of hindquarters. After about 30 minutes of preparation, I lay over her a couple of times and was on her back for the first time since getting pitched last week. We immediately went to work on yielding her hindquarters. We would take a couple of steps, yield, and then repeat. Eventually we worked up to where Lalo could basically stay in the middle with the lunge rope, I would yield her, and then switch directions and repeat. I was disappointed in how dull her flexing was. Although it was workable by the end of the session, there were a couple of times where it was just an ugly pulling contest. Very unexpected, too, as the last couple of horses I've trained have flexed on the weight of the reins. Anyway, she was figuring it out by the end.
We finished with some slow trotting in both directions. She has a nice slow trot and her head stayed down OK. She is still very attuned to noises outside the arena and it's going to take a lot of repetition to get this out of her. Lalo was not optimistic about her being a good horse in time for Madison.
Lalo also helped me with the trailer for about 20 minutes. Today I had some railroad ties laid in back of the trailer to make the step up easier and more incremental. We worked her primarily "old school," with me keeping her head pointed towards the trailer, and Lalo behind with a stick. She went on 3 times and backed out just fine.
Yesterday's session, btw, was a quiet affair with mostly shoulder-in, flexing, lunging, and obstacles.
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