Sage has a new friend: SAFE volunteer rider Scott B has started working with her and was kind enough to share his notes after their last session!
I worked with Sage on Sunday. These are the issues I noticed with her:
• She’s very herd bound
• She needs to respect my space and “stay off” me
• She need to connect to me
• Found her to be very “reactive”
This was my first time working with Sage. I would say the first and biggest issue is her lack of “hooking on” to me and paying attention to me instead of the horses she left behind. So, I made her “work” each time she did not stay connected to me and called out to the other horses. She did a lot of work! When we started, she had very little respect for my space. By the time we finished, I saw a big change. She was focused on me, responded to me and yielded to me instead of walking into my space.
Exercises:
Walking, stopping and backing
Backing from a distance
Hind quarter and front quarter yield
Half circle exercise
On the half circle exercise, she is much better with me on her left eye and moving from my right across me and to my left. When yielding her front quarter from my left side and moving across from my left to my right, she almost wanted to walk right over me. So, I did a lot of flag work to drive her off me and move away crossing over to my right. Got lots of improvement and she yielded much better by the time we finished. She also got very light backing up from a distance and when I was beside her. She also started to yield better without a lot of flag pressure but there is much work ahead for her. I’m looking forward to continuing to work with her.
