Good Times!!!

I had a pretty good weekend all-in-all with George. Saturday he was just a doll! We finally moved up to playing the circling game. I read somewhere that going through the other games is okay even if you are still having friendly problems. George is absolutely fine with me on his right side playing friendly, but on the left side he goes catatonic and then explodes! I've been spending most of our time together just trying to build rapport and get him comfortable with it, but it's just not happening. I figured if we continued to move on then he would be more inclined to beleive I'm not going to kill him with the stick! So we played the first five games, mostly went great!

Geroge was very happy at the circling game! We played on a 22-foot line, as always, and he kept TONS of slack in it. He is much better going to the right then to the left...not what I expected from a racehorse! Going to the left all he wanted was to stop and come in, so I let him, backed him up and sent him out again. With my last levels horse, I taught him to slow down on a circle by relaxing my body then wiggling on the rope. George was NOT okay with this! I relaxed my body then wiggled slightly on the rope and he went, "WHAT??? What happened to phase 1???" turned and faced me and backed up as quickly as possible to the end of the rope. Whoops, guess he's too sensitive for that one! I brought him in and gave him lots of love!

Then vet was due out so I decided to see if my "horse that doesn't tie" tied or not. This is what he thought about being tied:

I let him stand tied for about 30 minutes and decided it was a non-event, and my ropes are now a little worse for wear. But that's okay!

He was a wonder for the vet! He got all of his shots, blood drawn for his coggins, microchipped, and his teeth done and sheath cleaned! He was great for everything! Sunday came around and he still didn't have any bumps and such so I'm guessing he didn't have any bad reactions! I also noticed on Sunday that he finished all of his grain and most of his hay that morning! Usually he leaves more than half of both! The vet said that she took all the sharp points off his teeth but he had yet to get three of his adult teeth so his mouth will still be hurting a little until they came in completely. Here's a few pics of my little nerd!

playing the squeeze game of his own accord!

Also, she helped me decode George's fading lip tattoo! I sent it in to the Jockey Club and they sent me the link to his information. His damn is Playin the Blues and his sire is BGs Drone. His sire won over a million dollars in his track career, his dam's sire one over 3 million, George won a total of $268. I love him anyways!  He raced three times and the last time broke his sesamoid bone, I feel very blessed that his owner decided to save his life and just a few months ago gave him to me. He hasn't taken a lame step and he is a wonderful, intersting and challenging partner. I truly believe that he will be my superhorse!


Also, my saddle finally came today! yay! I can't wait to start playing with it! Maybe I'll ride him some time in the next few weeks!