Poptart lived up to his name once again

Ground driving prior to riding this week. Poptart is doing well, except for a 'moment' (after a great trail ride) when his hoof boot came off and proceeded to attack his hind legs. He was able to buck hard enough to free himself of all of his hoof boots (in pieces) and his rider (not in pieces, just a little bruised)... Now he gets to practice wearing his broken and flopping hoof boots, bell boots, and a creative assortment of anything else we can think of :)

Officially Adopted!!!

Poptart is now officially adopted!!!

He ground drove our neighborhood trails this week all by himself (no other horses were with him)
He did great and seemed to really enjoy it. We have increased our amount of trotting and transitions while riding and he seems to be acclimating to the fact that he has to go where I tell him (and at what speed). It is so hard to be a young horse, LOL! He has also figured out the 'jumping barrels' and 'side-passing over the bucket-lid' games on line. Up next we will see if he can sidepass over the bucket! (then someday the mounting block

More groundwork...

Quick workout after work today. Continued with going through the barrels and ended with a calm jump over them :) Then after saddling we squeezed through the barrels upright hitting the saddle stirrups lightly on the barrels (that is a fear trigger for Poptart), kept up for a few minutes until he could calmly walk through both directions. At the end we introduced ground driving which he took to quite quickly. We ground drove the property perimeter back to the arena. He gave me a little issue when we passed the barn (not wanting to keep going, LOL!) but we worked forward through it! As I suspected he shows the same fears/problems with ground driving as under saddle -- nervous with rein pressure and transitions. I am hopeful continued sessions will help him build confidence with this which will, hopefully continue under saddle. And we also had our 4th session of rolling 'on command' at the end -- soon (or eventually!) I will finally have a horse that will lay down for me :)

Farrier vist

Yesterday Poptart put his "big boy" pants on and trailered to John Crandell's and had his feet trimmed after Rogan got new shoes. John did a fantastic job dealing with Pop's wiggles and Poptart figured out it is much easier just to stand still and relax

Groundwork Update

Poptart's latest video of groundwork
He now accepts a saddle and we are starting to ride. He has also enjoyed several trips into the national forest being ponied with Rogan.