Mr Good Boy..

..is Rubi's new nickname - said in the best French accent, of course!

Took him out on a short 4km hack last night on his own and he went round pretty much the whole ride on a loose rein with no daft spooking whatsoever. He had one moment where he planted and wouldn't go forward, but it's on a path where the farmer has left some electric fencing on the floor at the side of the path and it makes a really loud clicking noise where the current is earthing itself. It sounds like you'd get a proper good thwack from the electrical current if you accidentally touched it so Rubi prefers me to get off and go first! hahaha

He's also started standing like a ROCK for being mounted, whether from the ground in the middle of a field somewhere or if I climb on to something to get up. He even stood really well for me when I managed to get my knee on the wrong side of the knee roll getting up and basically was tangled up in my saddle and had to half jump, half fall off the side of him and try again.

But he's really managing his emotions well at the moment, when there's something a bit spooky. He'll have a look and arch his neck out but he's really managing to hold on to himself and not spin and peg off. I think he needed to understand that the whole violent spooking thing was NOT what I was looking for - he must have thought he was doing a good job as a prey animal, trying to get us out of there ASAP when he thought something was a bit scary. For some reason, the act of circling him calmly when he spooks has taught him, without any harshness, that the spooking was not desirable. Then he's been rewarded every time he keeps control of his emotions and so now, he's going more in that direction of staying relatively calm even when he's not sure about something. We've also taken some advice from another endurance mentor we've met, who makes a point of making his young horses examine objects out on a ride if they're scared of them, so if Rubi has been spooky about a road sign or a pile of something, we've taken the time to stop and have a look, relax for a moment and realise that the object isn't a horse-eating monster.

But the most interesting thing for me is to see just how quickly he learns. It really does seem that he hardly ever needs something explaining twice and even something like the spooking, which I thought might always be the same because it was a 'temperament issue' is actually more of a training and learning issue and he's learned a new and much more acceptable response to situations or objects that he's not sure about, which is 'go and have a good look but stay calm' rather than 'run away as quickly as possible'.

So, we'll see how this continues. I think that we will benefit from doing some serious de-spooking work this winter with umbrellas and tarpaulins and barrels and all manner of bizarre objects.