Update on the horses

Quick one today with a bit of an update on the horses.

FRANK

Pic.: Frankie in the evening sun

I couldn't be more happy with him today. The last two sessions I kept him almost entirely in walk or returned him to walk as soon as I could when he spooked. I wanted him to react to me quicker and pay attention to my voice more immediately so when I sit on him I have something to help me control him when he is worried. I also wanted him to move slower with more balance.
He was really good on Friday but I had him in side reins which make him much more controllable.
So today, I decided to work him without anything, just a bridle and he was foot perfect. Even when he spooked it was into trot only and came back to walk after half a round the most. I did 20 minutes in walk and 5 minutes in trot. The latter was excellent, rhythmic and slow, exactly what I aimed for. You can watch it and judge it yourself:

Frankie on the lunge - 10th May

Frankie a few days earlier (still rushing and you can see he isn't as relaxed as on the video above)

If you want to compare it to the Fast & Worried from 3 weeks ago CLICK HERE and scroll down the post.

KINGSLEY

Kingsley is having DMSO for his splint. Here is one of the many articles on it that I found online:
Information on Dimethyl Sulfoxide (DMSO) Treatments for Horses. There seem to be two camps on DMSO, some swear by it, others say it's useless and didn't help their horses at all. We shall see. I walked him in-hand today and he was sound in walk. He also enjoyed a thorough groom and just a generally seems to be loving a life of a giant guinea pig. Mowing grass, being pampered and pooing are his activities right now.

VENUS

Pic.: Venus today: "What are you doing there with that camera?"

I put a bridle on her for the first time today with a straight bar nathe bit. She wasn't too impressed but wasn't too fussy either. The lungeing was less hectic than last time but she was still certainly very much in control so no videos as yet. Craig gave me a few pointers as to how to make her more focused on me but I didn't make a very good job of it. I should have let him show me exactly how to do it but didn't want to drag him away from his horse. Either way I finally managed to stop being worried about Venus's back end double barrelling into me and front end dancing around me and made some use of the techniques Craig explained to me. Despite me not being quick enough with my body language she finally settled, started paying more attention to me and walked and trotted in a decent manner. I then did a bit of in-hand walking over poles which she found impossible to go over at first but after numerous circling around them and seeing me going over, she followed without a fuss.
I'm certainly learning a lot from this mare!