Ditto, Day 2

It's hard to know who should chronicle Ditto's second day of training, but since Cathy has blogs coming out of her ears, I'll take a stab at it. She of course can write whatever she wishes about the experience, though no one will think to look for it under Very Large Colt.

Ditto also had not been turned out for a couple of days, though he was out in the pasture with his buddies until very recently. We got him saddled up without much ado -- a couple of spooks that were largely unrelated to ANYTHING we could see, but minimal reaction to the actual tacking up.

Then he ran and ran. He is a speedy little dude. I can see him whipping through poles or around barrels, or even motoring through a cross-country course. (Yes, he does like to free-jump... he gets that from his mother.) Of course those are the things I know -- I'm not as familiar with what a hunter or jumper pony might look like as an unstarted baby!

Cathy collected him and did groundwork. He did some things very well: all of the exercises like sitting above him, leaning on him from the mounting block, pulling on the stirrups, etc. He did some things not so well -- he was a puke about longeing to the right! I have had all sorts of problems with his longeing (until the Day 1 exercise in the round pen) and have tentatively conquered them. But Cathy is going to have her own cues and fixes for his stubborn ponyness, so I just watched and smiled knowingly. Remember I've gone through this not only with him, but with his mother as well. He is SO like his mother.

He ended on a good note and is now munching away in his stall thinking about the return to working for a living. I think he'll be a good little pony. But we shall see very soon!