Schooling Rio, continued

The other day, Shayla asked if Rio was quiet all the time, or if he had some life to him; the answers is yes indeed.
Our round pen footing is a little iffy right now- yesterday, I was longeing him in there and he slipped on a frozen spot, so today's session was all about ground work, which we did on the lawn to start with. He's coming along well with his halter lessons... that is, until it was time to ask him to trot nicely along.  Well, not so nicely! He showed us that this quiet boy can have a little coltitude, leaping around a little, hitting the end of the lead rope and running sideways, head up. Shayla did a good job of getting after him, but since he was being so strong, we went into the round pen to continue, figuring it was better to have him contained even if the footing wasn't the best.We did eventually get him to trot on a lead but had to longe him first until he was starting to relax and think a little.

I think he's testing the boundaries of this new part of his life, checking to see if he can dominate us.
I decided to take him out to the hayfield once he started behaving a little better, and the new environment helped, as long as we stayed at the walk he was fine. Trotting... not so much, he used it as an excuse to power up. So out came the bosal, it has a little more authority than a halter. Every time he threw his head up as a prelude to his sideways dance, he got one good thunk with that heavy bosal. Pretty soon, he was thinking twice about acting up; you could see his head start to come up and then he'd stop, like a lightbulb came on- "oh yeah, that's not so fun anymore!" We quit on a good note, when he started to be more respectful. The bosal gave Shayla the tool she needed to make him realize he couldn't pull her around. I'm a lot bigger than her, not so easy to get away from me.
This brings up a couple of points about horse training. First, there is never any one right way of doing things. You do what you can with the situation you are given, you work with the horse that you have at that moment with the tools that you have at hand. It's more about timing and reading the horse than it is about a set program.
The second thing is, just because things are going smoothly, never think that it will always be that way especially with a youngster, and don't get discouraged if it seems that there is a setback. They will always try to test the waters at some point, and if they don't, it's more likely that they will blow up on you when you least expect it. I welcome it when colts get full of 'tude, because it's an opportunity to teach them where their boundaries are, and it's always a delight when they figure it out. It's a stepping stone to creating that "good horse to ride."
And in Rio's case, riding can wait another day or two until he gets this part figured out!