Duke, I have discovered, is not very good at neck reining. He seems to have more trouble reining to the right than the left. However, we managed to get past the habit of trying to run me into the tree next to the jogging track. That, as it turns out, may not be a reining problem but a focus problem on my part. My new theory is that Duke rides in the direction I'm looking. If I stare at the tree as we round the bend, Duke heads straight for it. Today, as I galloped him around the track, I looked in the direction I wanted to go. Duke made the turn without any problems. I will have to experiment with this some more before I decide if my theory is correct.
I also learned today that Duke is very light on his feet. I took him over some cavaletti poles (poles laid on the ground in a parallel pattern so a horse has to concentrate on hoof placement as he steps through them) to see how a gaited horse handles them. The first couple of times at a walk were kind of brutal. Duke hit most of them with his feet. However, when I picked the pace up to a trot he stepped right through without hitting a single one of them. We went through several times to make sure it wasn't a fluke. He was very light and collected as he trotted through each time. This bodes well for jump training later.
Photo by Ty Holland
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