Almost!

So today I thought I'd try to ride Tug in from the pasture and then do some go/whoa and pushing passenger lessons in the lot beside the barn. But when I went out to the pasture with my mom, the mares ran up to the barn and Tug was at the end. As we started walking to him, I could tell that he was thinking about running in. He did and as he got closer he started to slow down. And instead of running around us like he normally does, he went right past us with an ear cocked in my direction. I could just see him thinking, "Is she gonna ask for something, should I stop?" I leaned over to disengage his HQs, but I did it too late. I was so surprised that he did that! One day he might actually stop!

We went up to the barn, and I got him to put his foot on things without a carrot stick!! So I put my bareback pad on him, and I mounted him from a stump. He's getting really good at that. ;) The pad slipped a little when I got on, and I could tell that he didn't want to go to the lot, but we eventually got there. Then there were a few times he tried to knock me off with a limb, but I got him stopping and going at phase 1/2. When I got off, I got a little direct lined with a ball, so I took a break. Then I put some grain on it and that changed his attitude about the ball. When I asked for him to kick it, he tried to slapped his foot on it. ;)

I'm just so happy he almost stopped! :)