I had trouble with keeping Sugar's attention. Unlike Elijah she did not bolt when I unharnessed her. She walked by my side quite willingly, stopped when I did, turned well and was not at all stubborn. Yet I knew I had her attention less than I had had with Elijah. At one point Sugar discovered a small clump of white horse hair on the ground, and she sniffed it and then blew it away from her feet with her nose, and then would do this over and over. I really worked just to get her to the other side of the arena. That felt humbling. We also tried to walk over the low hurdles (I don't remember what these things are called) but she would not follow. She would go around but not over.
Today this was like learning a stick shift after having been taught on an automatic. I needed much coaching on how to lead Sugar not from the forequarters but from the rear. We had to break down the movement of my body in relation to her back hip. Sometimes I would face her back hip and try to get her to back up which didn't work well. The best option was to walk forward but in such a way that I got closer to her hip with my left shoulder. We worked a little bit on driving again with some refinements and I felt I could read her signals of compliance or resistance better.
Karen mentioned that it was better to learn how to direct the horse from the ground. Really to get that down before ever riding which requires the use of the reins in addition to body position. Every day I get just that much closer to being interested in riding. I was probably foolish to think this benign investigation of horse nature would not be leading to that inevitability. I am pondering riding. I am more eager to believe that a horse likes to be ridden. At the very least it gets them into new territory. And other rationales to come I am sure.
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