All aboard

I have been having fun getting to know Ali the last couple of weeks. She has shown me a lot about her personality. First thing that I should say about her is that she is a kind minded horses, however there has been a lot of things happening to her that she is unsure about. When horses are unsure about something they will flee, or fight. While most of the time horses will flee when they feel trapped they will fight. I view that this has been the root of the problem. With the world as she knew it turning completely upside down it is easy to make her feel trapped. For the first few days I would give her a way out and show her the way by not only letting her move when she needed to but controlling where she moved to and which feet she moved. I gave her a couple of lessons on respecting my space and she seems to be appreciating the guidance. After I learned some about her I felt that if I took my time and showed her what I was doing, she would let me get on. So I went through all the phases in preparing her for me to get on. I was careful not to move on until she was good with what I had just done. In no time at all I was in the saddle. I asked her to move her back feet and she did and stayed calm then I tried to get her to step with her front feet and walk a little circle, all with her head bent to the left. When she got excited I would ask her to bend her head and she would calm down. We didn't ever get out that small circle that day. The next day was about the same except I asked her to go alittle to the right as well. Small steps and taking out time is the name of the game. What might seem like a very little thing to the human is a big deal to the horse, most of all this horse. As the rides have progressed we have had small victories and are now walking around both directions. I tried to aske her for a trot today and she seemed uninterested in speeding up. I will keep working at it a few more days and accepting small victories and progressing every day. If I am unable to get her to move out better by next week I will get a friend of mine to come in and lounge her while I ride and that should do the trick. I hope that I am able to keep her in the frame of mind that she is in now and that we don't have the "blow up" that she has become famous for. I look foward to reporting more good news. Until next time God Bless.BW