"Project Lizzie"

Okay!  Lizzie is healthy again so she needs to go back to work.  Or to be more exact, she needs to go to work for the FIRST time since I got her last year!  Torri volunteered to help get her back in shape since I'm basically afraid to do it.  When I got on her last Sunday for the first time this spring, she started rearing up.  That was IT for me then . . . I am no longer so young that I would bounce if I got thrown off.  So Torri took over for me.   Check out this video.  And that was taken AFTER the worst of her behavior!  When she started to rear up, Torri was calm and settled her right down.  When she did that to me, I got really nervous and she no doubt realized that was true and got worse!

Anyway - it took a little while for Lizzie to really settle down and start listening to Torri yesterday.  But today it didn't seem to take more than about 5 minutes or so!

After they rode around for a while, Torri halted her and she stood there quietly for a good five or ten minutes.  Excellent!

Tomorrow Torri has other plans and won't be coming to the barn, so I think I'll saddle her up and try riding her myself.  We'll try it in the round pen first.  Then if she listens, we'll open the gate and ride around in the trees for a while.  Then Torri will take over again on Wednesday.  She says if Lizzie is ridden every day for a week she'll turn over a new leaf.  I hope she's right, but I'm still going to check with Zoilo and see if he'll take her for a month or so for training. 

Once Torri got done riding her today, Lizzie was actually sweating!  So I hosed her down before I turned her out.  Talk about futile!

This is about 30 seconds after I released her - and she's not even 10 feet from the gate!

I think she's saying "I TOLD YOU --- I DID NOT WANT A BATH!"

When I left she was happily grazing - entirely coated in dirt.  Sigh.