Today - 13/03/08

Well, the little monster is on reprieve, for now. I can't be angry with him, it's his hormones. But I'm not making excuses, oh no, he came within a hair's breadth of being sold, but Andrew stepped in with a plea for clemency! I was just too despondent to deal with this latest blow. After all, I kept thinking, who the hell am I to be able to handle a stallion. Yes, I have over 20 years experience, but that was with geldings and mostly the same ones. It was a downward spiral, with more and more negative thoughts heaping on top of each other until all I wanted to do was either give up completely or buy a big,old nag that wouldn't say boo to a goose! I'm not sure what changed my mind, or maybe I'm just to darn stubborn, but anyway, I agreed to give Merlin a chance!

Last night I separated Merlin and Toffee for a bit so that I could fit some new tack on Toffee. They weren't happy, but soon settled.

Today, I separated them again for a short time and Merlin squinnied a lot, so I gave him some hay, and he quietened down a bit. I then took Toffee for a ride around the lane and although Merlin neighed a lot to start with, he soon settled down. The lane runs a complete circuit around our field and the ones beside us, so that when we reached the top, I could see over the hedge and down into Yarrow. Merlin was watching me and seemed pretty calm.

After letting Toffee loose on the grass as a reward for his terribly hard work (10 minutes!) I then put the Dually on Merlin and took him in the school for a 'lesson'.

Every time he tried to bite me, I halted and backed him up. At one point when I asked for 'over' he threw his entire weight on me to push ME over. I stuck my backside to his tummy and planted my feet, so he reared up! More 'back up', change direction, change rein and then asked again for 'over'. He backed up and tried to bite. Repeated the leading and direction change, asked for 'over' and he did it perfectly.

I continued with this for about 15mins until he was just too really tired to try and bite me. I couldn't have worked him for any longer because I think that would have been overkill. I think it was mental tiredness, as he was digesting the fact that biting equals hard work. When he did get it right, he got plenty of praise and a nice scratch on his neck, but again, I didn't overdo it, because I didn't want to overplay things too much.

I let him loose and he instantly ran up to me, so I squared my shoulders, raised my hands and made him back up. I don't want him invading my space without being invited, and besides, I think he was aiming to bite me on the butt! Just a hunch!

He seems to want to be in my space a lot and I'm not sure what his motives are. Is it a genuine need for a companion that won't beat him up the way Toffee does, or am I just fresh meat to play with and torment? After all, Toffee is pretty patient, but Merlin really does push his buttons. I'm keeping an open mind on the answer to that, but for now, today, I feel less despondent. Mind you, tomorrow I'm sure won't be so easy as Merlin will probably be expecting me to school him and my distractions may not be so effective. I'm going to buy some really nasty gel that's used to stop crib biters, and if the schooling hits a snag, then I'll put a smear of it on my gloves and see if that deters him.