Hamilton Days 32-50

Bareback and bridle-less??

Y’all it’s been a while since you’ve gotten an update but I promise this update is worth your time! Hamilton has gone backwards and forwards the past 20 days. We’ve had some ugly days, and some okay days, then a few good days here and there. I was really focusing on liberty the past few days. He was doing awesome and then one day he took off, and let me tell you, being mustang bred this boy can run FOREVER. Gave me a major workout! But it’s been so fun to learn more and more about him each day.

Someone had said he’s scared of beach balls, he didn’t show it in the last video. But gohlee this boy was so scared of a big ball! But he quickly got over it! I don’t think he was scared of beach balls necessarily, but the big ball that’s over half his size is definitely scary!

In the beginning you should remember that Hamilton didn’t want to be close to you while walking and there was no way he had any way of wanting to trot beside you. I saw this as a challenge, in which I wanted to push both him and myself. Liberty is something that is based off of pure trust between equine and their friend. (As well as bit-less riding) Because Hamilton was so hard to get to trot beside me in the beginning, I knew that learning liberty would be something really good for him. Although I don’t know everything about liberty and I may not do it to the professionals eye, it’s one of the things I look forward to working with Hamilton on each day. He had a hard time moving and disengaging his hind quarters, but it’s something we work on daily.

Hamilton has drastically gotten better with patience. You’ll see when I ask him to lay down, he doesn’t hesitate to get up until I say so. He will lay flat, until I say to sit up more. Then he will sit there until I ask him to get all the way up. I’m super happy with this. He’s good with the dog (and me) climbing all over him and he won’t move. He’s cautious as to what’s around him, which I think is very important.

When I first started Hamilton, he wasn’t good at foot pressure, now that he knows, he is very sensitive to spurs and does amazing without them. Check about 3/4 the way through the video and you will see what I mean! He responds amazing to foot pressure. Bit less and bareback was a spur of the moment decision the night I took the video. I trusted him, but I didn’t know how much I trusted him. I figured “Well, if he takes off I’ll just jump off.” I’m glad I took that chance. He showed me he trusts me and he wants to do good for me. For a while I didn’t trust him enough, then I trusted him too much, and now I think we’re getting to the point where trusting each other just enough to have a mutual trust between us. Knowing he doesn’t want to hurt me, and I won’t hurt him. But when we work together, with a mutual trust, it all works out!

Some of you are probably wondering how his herd interaction has been. Hamilton has the rope horse as a buddy, but he’s not buddy sour which I’m very thankful for! You can take Hamilton out and he doesn’t care, and you can take the rope horse out and neither care. I like to see this kind of “friendship” between horses. The horses allow him to come in the barn and stand in the corner with the rope horse. I’d say they all “tolerate” him. He did get in a small fight with the only mare in the herd. I’m not sure how it started or what happened, but Hamilton definitely won and made her leave. This was the first I saw him claim dominance over another horse. I think he’s slowing finding a little more dominance.

I’m over half way through my time with this boy, and he’s stealing my heart more and more each day. His adopter is going to be a lucky one! If you’d like to have the opportunity to adopt Hamilton, pm me! If you’d like to sponsor, you still can! Pm me!

Here's the link to our video!

https://www.facebook.com/ejbhorsemanship/videos/275611087213204

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