Ace is doing excellent, yesterday we had some major breakthroughs. Since lately he had not been trying as hard as I would like him to, and for the most part he was practicing evasion, I decided to sack him out tied up. He has been tied extensively, so I figured why not. He had yet to seriously pull back so I started out slowly. I warmed him up in the round pen and worked on some of our exercises. I rubbed him down with my hand all over, and then brushed him and picked out his feet. I started sacking him out with a horseman's flag with a sack attached to it. ( We've done this a lot with out him tied) He was fine, no reaction. Then I started grabbing various items fly mask, towels, feed sacks, and sacked him out with each item until he was comfortable with them, progressing from the least scary to the most scary. Then I did the same with the pad, saddle, and eventually a blanket. (Which he has never had a blanket on ever) A very successful day indeed. He did pull back a few times (I wanted him to so I could test how well he is giving to pressure, and so he doesn't panic when he gets spooked enough sometime to pull back.) he came right forward and gave like he was supposed to. Here are some pics.
(Note* Obviously since Ace has not been shown, he did not win this blanket. It's one I won a few years ago. AND since he's only three lol he'd have been way to young to ride back then lol.)
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