2011 – Rock & Roll – 5-3-11 – OUTDOOR ARENA TRAINING

5/3/11: Rock and Roll got worked outside today in our full size dressage arena (60’ X 180’). They had been working in the smaller arena (60’ X 120’). I changed out one pole in the 4-pole series to a 2” pole with 3 – 1” poles. Rock thought it was the “Great Wall of China” and it took 3 tries to get him to go through the line of poles. Once he realized it was cake…he was a bit embarrassed and was an angel for the rest of the workout. He had several moments where he actually stopped squarely with full weight on all four legs, but after two passes through the hourglass, he did begin to slow a bit. We did 2 passes the opposite direction and called it good. He is truly working hard to do what I ask and is on occasion self-motivated. He really likes doing well in “school!” After I finished with him, I put his tack on the fence and thought he would just wander around, but he got very playful and first began to eat the tack that was hanging on the gate, then he wanted to see what Kristen was doing with the camera…then he went to see what I was doing over by the video camera with Roll…where he discovered the oats bucket!!! I had to change my plane and turned him out on grass for the time I worked Roll. Roll had a good workout in the hourglass (even trotted along the long side of the arena with help from our still camera person)…one rotation each direction and then I separated him from Rock and went to the round pen. He did get a little worried when I was taking him around the buildings to the round pen and he couldn’t see Rock, but was fine after he discovered he could see Rock from the round pen…and Rock got worried in the pasture until I hollered at him that Roll was still in sight again! I was pleased that they both trust me enough to be away from each other.