As I was riding a dressage mare yesterday, I went to pick up my reins like Linda does: I held the buckle with one hand and slid them up through my other hand. I have been playing some with the GoC here and there so it has just become habit for me to do that. Can you guess what the mare did? Stretched into the contact. So just out of curiosity, I just started combing my reins. Can you guess what the mare did? Stretched into the contact even more. Hmmm how interesting!
Today I started to teach a different mare the seven games. This mare has only had human contact for about a month now, but is three years old. She had spent all that time out in a field with like 200-300 other mares and babies. I didn't plan on doing much with her today because I was expecting to just play friendly game with the carrot stick. Well we blew through the first four games. In half an hour. Wow. Looks like she is LB, but regardless she literally acted like someone had taught her the games before (which is not true). By the end of our quick session, she was already turning and facing me when I just bent over. Phase 1 driving game, in just a few minutes. I know Pat says horses already know levels 1 through 3, but that still blew me away. Something tells me that huge herd of horses had something to do with our success today... Hmmm how interesting!
As I get the opportunity to be around more and more horses (and I will explain more about these two fabulous mares soon), I feel more and more confident in my choice of following Parelli. I have been seeing correlations with horses and owners and training methods and so on, and when I like what I see, I can usually pick up on a few of the quirky, little suggestions of Parelli. But, again, just food for thought ;).
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