At the beginning of Day 2, the colts were each put in a different round pen from the day before. This time they would be worked for a total of two hours. The trainers had to be outside of the pens for some combination of another 20 minutes so the colts could rest.
Carryover and Firsts
John was able to walk right up to his quietly standing colt and give him lots of rubs and hugs. He spent a lot of time throughout the entire session handling and hugging his colt's head, ears, and nose, getting him to relax, give to pressure, and accept that having a person do anything at all with his head was not only okay, but it was actually pleasurable and reassuring.
These colts had just come from Wyoming, where March is very much mid-winter, so they were still wearing their heavy winter coats. Chilly as it was by Tennessee standards, John knew it was pretty warm to this colt. With a lot of physical activity coming up, John didn't want him to get too overheated, so he started currying and brushing him. This was a Road to the Horse first that really helped relax the colt. It also got a lot of wooly, sweaty, winter fur from the day before off the colt and onto the ground.
While he obviously enjoyed the grooming, John's colt strenuously objected to protective front boots-also a Road to the Horse first. This took a lot of time and effort, but John quietly persisted until the boots were secure. John felt that this was an important safety provision for his colt.
John started picking up a hind foot, but the colt was still showing a great deal of fear, so he shifted to work on "spook in place" training. "You can't expect a horse never to be afraid, but you can teach him to stand and face the thing he's afraid of," John explained.
He began this training by just saying, "Boo!" and barely waving his hands at the colt. When the colt didn't move, he was rewarded with more rubs and hugs. John gradually progressed to bigger motions, each time rewarding the colt for standing still and watching. Eventually, he was able to shake a plastic tarp in the colt's face while he just stared at him, obviously wondering what odd thing John might come up with next.
The colt was still tending to present his hindquarters to John, so he also attached a lariat to a burlap bag around the colt's neck to teach him to turn and face John. The burlap distributed pressure so it wouldn't hurt. Pain-aside from being wrong and unnecessary-is a distraction. John ended up wrapping the lariat completely around the horse's body again, letting the colt quietly figure out how to walk out of the tangle.
This was a good point for a break.
Build Trust
Host Rick Lamb came over to chat and asked John if the colt was learning to trust him.
"He's learning to trust me to be me," John answered. "What is important to all horses is consistency," he added. Always being firm but gentle, never losing his temper, insisting on a response to his cues but having a positive response be pleasant and well-rewarded was what was making an impression on John's colt.
Returning to the pen, John worked on more sacking out with a saddle blanket. He brought out a tarp and flapped it around for more "spook in place" work. The colt began willingly coming forward to investigate things that had frightened him only the day before.
After the colt was saddled and bridled again, John reviewed the rope desensitization done the day before. The colt would still occasionally present his hindquarters, so John worked more on "hips over" cues from both sides.
Shoulder Control
Next, John started working on shoulder control. This involves important exercises that teach the horse to move his shoulder a specific direction away from the handler. This exercise was necessary to give John more control over where the colt was trying to place his body when he got nervous. Like the "hips over" cue, it's always practiced with the horse moving.
Positioning his hand on the rein to give the same signal when he was in the saddle, John gave a "go forward" cue and shifted the colt's balance to the opposite shoulder so it was natural for him to step away.
The colt started to freeze up when asked to go forward. Actually, he planted his feet so firmly to the ground that it looked like a derrick wouldn't move him!
By this point, the colt was expressing less of a sentiment of "I'm afraid of everything here" and more of a sentiment of "I'm afraid because I don't understand what I am supposed to do next."
He reverted to trying to push into John rather than moving away from pressure. The most effective way of dealing with this is to take time to solidly establish shoulder control. Time is not a luxury this competition allows, but shoulder control is necessary for safety.
Tapping gently with a dressage whip, John reviewed a lot of "go forward" and "hips over" work. Although he began moving again, the colt was still not consistent.
After a good response, John gave the colt another break. He returned to the pen with a lariat in his hand. Tapping with the dressage whip was not proving effective, and too much pressure would be a harmful, negative approach. Neither fear nor pain was going to make the colt learn faster. He had responded well to the lariat during the early groundwork, so John went back to that.
He continued to send the colt forward. John used the lariat attached to the bridle then wrapped around the hindquarters to get the colt to give to pressure and move his hips over. When that was better established, John stepped into the stirrup, waggled the saddle around, mounted, and rubbed on the colt while he was up there. He then got on and off from both sides repeatedly, slapping the saddle and making noise.
