#17 Final Day

These photographs should be reversed, but I am in a hotel working on Joseph's little laptop and don't know how to do that without losing a photo.

Our last morning started at 5:30 when Reba picked me up in Jim's truck. She opted to drive which was fine with me. In fact, the only driving I did was hauling the trailer. Reba and Kelly were my helpers all weekend, and they were the biggest help. They fed, watered, groomed, cleaned stalls, encouraged me, and even offered a nip of VO when necessary..... Reba drove us all over when we went out to eat or wander. Anyhow, we got back there in time for me to get a little one on one help. I worked again on yielding the front end and the back end since I knew we would be lunging, and sending again this morning. We started with all of that and then we kind of combined the two. We were to send the horse and then step in front of the horse while changing hands on the stick and rope, and then immediately send them the other direction. In the second photo I am getting some help from Clinton, in the first photo I am getting the hang of it.

Another exercise we did was walking in a circle with our horse walking with us... we would rest our stick on their shoulder. We would walk in about 10 feet circles for awhile and then we would change directions. We also did an exercise that teaches the horse to stay by our shoulder while leading them. As the horse got the hang of that, we worked on changing directions to the inside, and also to the outside. The object being that the horse would learn when to hustle and catch up.

We ate our last lunch at the Subway again. It was close, and menu predictable.