The day dawned with a temperature of -23. Undaunted I decided to not ride and refocus on games at liberty. The temperature in the arena started at -12 and worked its way up to -7 while I played with Blue, the Pax, then Kye, then Spring Song and finally Zelador. Zeloso was the odd man out because Bill will be riding him this evening.
Today Zelador was amazing. He did his piaffe with me walking at his croup touching him with first one finger, then the other to establish the rhythm. He’s also figuring out how to do leg yield with the head to the wall with me at the croup and we’re sorting out a cue for the Spanish Walk. When I asked for the Spanish Walk I got a very animated piaffe. Zelador has been able to do the leg yield and Spanish Walk at liberty for several years, but I’m beside him, not behind him.
Also today when retrieving objects to place them in the wading pool he made a point of tossing the ringed toy directly to me. I invited him to practice this a bit more up on his pedestal. The pedestal is a great home base and learning platform. I tossed the ringed toy to him and sometimes he caught it (unbelievable!!!) and other times he bumped it with his nose and sent it back to me (I caught it!!!).
I gave him some gap time from the tossing /catching game, then went back to the pedestal and did a few more tosses. Yep, he could still catch and toss! Got to get someone to videotape this new game.
