Playing hard to catch

Yesterday Cash got it into his head that he didn't want to be caught.  Apparently, I've been spending too much time with the pony and not enough time with him, so he wanted to teach me a lesson!! I spent a flippin hour trying to catch the damn horse (pardon my french).  Even got him into the alley way, no luck... Rosemary, the barn owner tried... no luck.  It was starting to get dark, we tried bringing the horses in for dinner, no luck!! He was NOT going to be caught.  I finally left feeling very unhappy about letting him win.  Rosemary was able to catch him later in the evening and bring him in, and she put his turnout halter on to aid in catching for a bit.

Today went much better, he turned and walked away from me initially, but when I started to cuddle on the pony he got curious and came over and I was able to grab his halter before he decided to move off again.

We then headed to the round pen for some "join up" type work to get him listening and thinking about submitting and respecting me as Alpha Mare like the good boy that he is.  And... he was, surprisingly very good.  

Very relaxed, only had one minute or two where he had to get the ants outta his pants, but otherwise he was great really.  Listened to me, and every time I relaxed and asked him to come in to me via body language he instantly slowed, relaxed, showed a "release" (in this case licking and chewing and dropping the head), and came in to me and stood patiently for my next move.

He'd then follow me around as if on a lead, forwards, stopping, and even backing without me touching him.  It's rather cool really :)  Overall, I gotta say I'm pretty pleased with how well Cash has picked up on the ground work in the year that I've had him.

I can be a good boy, really, I can!

He was also surprisingly quite sound.  I'm really quite pleased with how quickly he's regaining his soundness after getting the shoes off.  Especially considering that the day after getting the shoes off it warmed up and within a few days all the snow was gone and the ground was back to being very dry, and very hard, and very rocky.  Murphy's law right?  Ah well, he's like 98% sound right now, the right front is the culprit, just gotta give it time!  Maybe that Keratex Hoof Hardener is actually doing it's job, it's gotta be helping!

All in all, today was a great day at the barn.  Cash was good, and I had a great time working with the pony, he is doing just awesome, and I promise I will have a post about him soon!! Maybe tomorrow, or monday, whenever I get done with homework :)  Lets just say I'm having waaaaay too much fun working with him than I should be allowed.