Little things

I spent some time with Clancy yesterday. She is looking a bit sad about being alone, so I spent a lot of time brushing her, washing her muddy tail- I braided it after I rode so that it would stay clean when she rolls.
I have made some good progress in her trusting me when it comes to saddling and mounting. She no longer takes a big breath and holds it while I cinch her up, and she doesn't bite the rail much any more either. Just once when I brought the saddle blanket out. Slow and easy seems to be paying off with this mare, which makes me pretty sure that the Former Owner (FO) didn't give a hoot about her being ok with what he was doing. You know, that cowboy -up- we gotta get stuff done  attitude, which may work fine with some horses but it's plain to me that this mare got defensive. She also stands still, and doesn't move off right away when I get on. I'll take the little advancements!

I spent some time on ground work. This is the first time I have worked her since she left me watching her rapidly receding into the distance after she rolled. I was more concerned with getting Josie going, so Clancy was put on the back burner.
One of the things I played with was getting her to stand square, without me being right beside her. I was about 8 ft. away in front of her and just used the rope to get her to move her feet; just the tiniest wiggle of the lead rope or suggestion to move a foot ahead or back. It was fun! She did really well; then it was getting her to stand and ground tie while I moved around her; she kept wanting to turn to face me, so I'd have to set her up again. Finally, we got this:

I have a lot of work to do legging her up. We did some trotting and softening in the round pen. We also worked on her sidepass until she was consistent at it- and I found how much my timing really sucks! Then used that sidepass to work on opening the gate and riding through and closing it. Much better, she has some dwell now and isn't just in a big hurry to get through it, but I need to work on the closing, as she just wants to leave and not sidepass back to actually close it. I chose not to make an issue of it, just quietly kept at it until the gate was closed and latched. I'm sure we can make big improvements there every time we do it.