Updates on Prince Chief

Chief is so.. bipolar. And so am I. I've had him going in the Tom Thumb bit for a good month now, and not a lot's changed. For a while, he started improving a LOT. But the problem with the TT is that the shanks are built so they can swivel, and Chief's learned how to flip his tongue so that the cheek pieces swivel into his mouth. And he gets them in his mouth and BAM I have no control of him because he has my leverage. Legs can only do so much when your horse is focused on trying to take your control.

First ride with the TT. Doing okay.. working on bending. His face here is like "bend? what the heck is this bend thing? and what's this thing in my mouth..? it's different.." he was so confused. And then, he was okay with it. And we worked on turning around cones, etc. Man, this was a long caption. Lol.

Really, he's been doing okay. On Tuesday, I worked him walk/trot on barrels. We run left-handed barrels because he seems to like that better. And lately, working both left- and right-handed barrels, he's swung wide coming out of the second barrel and running to the third. I don't know if it's me or him, but we're going to switch back the bit to the snaffle and see what happens with that. Today, we're also going to be trotting. A lot. Because someone needs butt muscles. I want to see HUGE muscles on him by county fair. And that means our warm-up will be pure trotting. Yep.

Also, I have a show March 11th. I'm taking my friend and her horse with me, and I really just want to get Chief out there and give him the experience of the craziness of shows. I don't want to win. I want to have fun and enjoy my horse. And that's exactly what I intend to do. It should be... interesting. I think he trusts me, but we'll truly see where both of our hearts lay once we get there. I hope he trusts me enough to relax and let me assure him that nobody's gonna eat him. 

I say.. bring it on.