Saturday we worked the three horses together for the first time. Ron with Kye, Bill with Zeloso and me with Zelador.
We accidently did the right thing. Each of us worked each horse on different things (I had Zelador free, the other two had halters and leadlines). This was done simultaneously. I was carefully watching Z and Z when Ron had Kye push the big ball ALL over the arena. Z and Z love to attack it. One time Zelador accidently bit his tongue in his excitement while leaping after the ball. I am pleased to report that Z and Z stood politely on their respective pedestals during Kye’s performance.
Then I set up a low jump with the blocks and one by one we took turns jumping while the other two did things with pedestals, etc. Zeloso was leaping during his jumping turn so we decided to have two horses on pedestals and one jumping FREE, just to get the kinks out of Zeloso. The pedestal people were also the human barrier to keep the free jumping horse at the west end of the arena. This translates to: the pedestal horse was a meter or two behind the barrier person and not experiencing “eye contact” to keep the horse where it belonged. The pedestal horses were soooo good. They stood and watched.
We did a few jumps with each horse with his handler (two cycles of this), then had Kye and Zelador free (Zelador decided to pretend to nip Kye into “shape” and herd him), then Kye and Zeloso free, then Z and Z free (both times with me helping the combination of two at the far end). I asked for simultaneous bows from Z and Z during their turn. I learned that I need to have Zeloso on my right (because that’s the side we taught the bow from) and Zelador on my left. It would also help to have two wands. Zelador will bow from the right side, but he opted to kneel.Then we added Kye. They did great! At one point I asked them to change direction. Bill said it was beautiful…one horse following the other. Talk about luck!
Ron hopes to be here this morning and we’ll play with the three again.
We also added a pole under the teeter-totter. Each horse did well. There was that dramatic moment when they hit the centre of the teeter-totter and the end they’d just walked on lifted and balanced above the ground. Then there was the BIG moment when the teeter-totter in front of the horse went DOWN. Kye and Pax opted to step off sideways. Z and Z were less perturbed and walked off the end of the teeter-totter.
Great fun!
