Last Playtime of 2008

I went out to the pasture on the afternoon of December 30th, a couple hours before I was going to leave with my youth group for Winterfest at Liberty University in Lynchburg. I went to the gate and really took my time, waiting for his permission to come in and giving them pieces of carrots. I got in the fence, scratched his itchies and headed up the hill with him following right behind me nicely. We got up to the barn, haltered Woody (went really well compared to the last couple times I've haltered him and him walking off), got my equipment bag ready (22' line, 45' line, carrot pieces, helmet, portable radio I got for Christmas with iPod hookup so we can play to music, and carrot stick), and headed to the round pen. I really wanted that session to be thought provoking for Woody and really tap into his Horsenality and give him something fun to do. The first thing we did is I asked him to step up on the pedestal, and he did so nicely and really thought his way through it and on top of it, I was really pleased. I gave him a piece of carrot and moved on. Next, we did the Figure 8 pattern which took a while but finally was really great. He kept stopping at the cones, picking them up with his mouth, trying to crush them with his body and just generally trying to break them, but I laughed and after a little bit of playing asked him to go on. Once I turned the Figure 8 game into "you need to pass me before I smack the ground really hard" and he caught on, it went really well and he found it more fun trying to see how long he could take before I smacked the ground. He finally gave me a series of really nice, connected Figure 8's with really nice turns, so I stopped.
After a little break, I decided that he could handle the challenge of Sidewaysing over a single barrel. Boy was I wrong. I started to get frustrated at him for not understanding, and when I felt that begin, I stopped and took a little break so it wouldn't get worse. I decided to do Sideways down the fence so he might get Sideways in his head and bring it over, and then I got the idea that I could put the barrel so that he would go over it going down the fence. We did that for 20 minutes, going Sideways, coming to the barrel, getting 1 step over the barrel or so, and retreating as he got worried. Finally, after patience and no frustration, he figured it out and went beautifully over the barrel. I was so proud of him and me for setting him up well, so I called it quits, gave him a carrot, took the line off of him, packed up, and both of us headed back to the barn.
It was really fun and I think he enjoyed it too. I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve celebration and an awesome New Year!
Things to work on: keep building Sideways game over barrels by setting it up for success and also keep using my body blocks as Woody has become more of a friendly biter (curious little pony).
~Eden