Wizard Session 46; JR Session 1- Double Trouble

Sat 2/7/09

The plan for Wizard is to get a set of shoes put on him next time my farrier is at the barn. In the meantime, I’m doing groundwork with him. We did a little clicker work, practicing targeting and a little work with disengaging his hindquarters. I also let him trot loose in the arena to stretch his legs. Then, I put venice turpentine on his soles, Corona on his hooves, and put him to bed with some Dengie.

I’ve started with with JR, a 7 year old palomino Quarter Horse gelding. He is barely 15 hands tall, but he’s very stout, broader than Wizard (photo below of Wizard and JR so you can see the size difference). He is very sweet and willing, but also athletic. He has a very short and strong back, and I expect him to be quite versatile under saddle. My friend Sarah has ridden him a few times this week and he is green but very pleasant.

For our first session, I groomed JR- he stands really nicely on the crossties and only got a little ticklish when I groomed his back. I then introduced JR to clicker training, starting with targeting a traffic cone. He took a few tries longer than Wizard but he caught on nicely. We then targeted a few jumps in the arena.

After 5 minutes of clicker work, I longed JR to get a feel for his experience level and to get used to working with him. He knows how to go forward off of the cue of a whip, but he longes in a banana shape, travelling in a curve, hitting the end of the line and turning around. He does not seem to know how to longe at different gaits yet, either. He’s such a willing guy that I think we’ll have no trouble teaching gaits and “whoah” on the longe in a few sessions.