More Training with Duke

I finally found some time to ride Duke yesterday. The weather had cleared up and the conditions were perfect for riding. I decided to start out with some conditioning work on the jogging track and test my theories about his tendency to try and run me into a tree. I was very careful to look in the direction I wanted to go on the curve and that seemed to work very well with direct reining. However, when I switched the neck reining, he would veer off toward the tree every time regardless of where I was looking. Although this is still disturbing, at least he will consistently turn in the right direction with direct reining. After a few of these tree-hugging experiences I decided to concentrate on teaching Duke to neck rein. I rode him around various obstacles and would lay one rein or the other across his neck. He at first did not respond to this so I would follow up with direct rein to turn his head. He soon learned that if he responded to the rein on his neck he wouldn't get the second rein pulling on the bit. He managed to pick up this concept at a walk but would forget the neck rein concept at a trot. Frustrating for sure but these things take time. We still goes through the cavalettis at a trot perfectly so we did that and ended the lesson on a positive note. Duke was clearly pleased with himself at the end so I think it was a good training session.