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The strategy for working the yearlings was that all of the yearlings would be worked by the professionals first. Afterwards, those which the clinicians felt were safe could be worked by the mentors under the clinicians' supervision.
Monday morning brought cloudy skies and a threat of showers; unusual weather for California in September. We decided to "gate cut" the horses out to the trainers so whatever came out of the gate first would be what they worked. Sgt. Atwood took the round corral and John Sharp took the square pen.
Sgt. Atwood's cut was a particularly tough appy filly. She couldn't care less that he was in the round corral with her and he had to keep pressuring her to get her attention. He proceeded slowly but consistently and the horse started to accept him.
John Sharp's first cut was a little more lively. His horse displayed a more conventional wariness as he approached the horse, rubbing it all over with a bamboo pole. His was a dance where he checked the horse's movement with his body position to offset the stimulous of the pole. Before too much time passed, he had passed the pole all over the horse's bodu including the legs and belly. He also "flossed" the horse all over with a cotton rope. Finally he approached the horse, touched it and made a halter out of the rope, basically constructing it on the horse.
While leading the horse back to its pen, John tripped over a spacer bar in the aisleway and fell. The horse scooted away a short distance and we all expected it to hit the far gate, then come back over the top of John. Instead it stood quietly until John dusted himself off, walked over and picked up the leadrope, then led the horse back to the pen.
While all of this was going on, Frank Bell arrived and drew a fairly level headed horse. He tossed a loop over its head, got it in close and "danced" with the horse for a few minutes during which time he haltered it. In less than an hour the horse was saddled and he rode it. (We found out later that this particular horse had been worked in a short demo by Brian Neubert a few months earlier so the round pen was not completely foreign to it.)
Frank's next horse was more of a challenge and while he was working it, he kept watching John working away with his pole. It wasn't long before Frank and Sgt. Atwood were both taking "poleing" lessons from John Sharp.
The rest of the workshop was punctuated with fishing and "Poleish" jokes.
Dennis Bright and his crew arrived and we made a decision for him to emphasize a few safety principles and also demonstrate gentling a couple of horses from on top of his big appy. He stayed busy with these missions and did well with his horses. As the program progressed, we used Dennis more for safe intermediate horse handling than starting the yearlings, although he did get his share of "gate cuts."
For his lighter yearling load, we sent Dennis the most aggressive and alpha of the fillies and he handled her fairly and got her settled down nicely.
Hue Simpson started some TTeamwork on a few of the older horses which were brought in for rehab and also did some TTeam on a couple of the more approachable yearlings which had already been initially handled.
Monday night ended with a yearling adoption. 17 yearlings were adopted and by the end of the adoption, we were all pretty worn out.
Hue and Starfire
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