Went to the Lincoln County Fair. It was hot and humid. When we got to the fair Knight seemed to be troubled more than he was Tuesday night at the fair, but not bad though. I saddled him up
and started up towards the arena. He has gotten real comfortable around the commotion of the horse show and is not bothered at all when there are others horses around. I sat on him and watched the show and talked to some people. People seemed to be drawn to him and especially
people that aren't horse people want to know if they can touch him. He's getting to where he really enjoys people coming up and petting on him. I think he enjoys the attention. Its now intermission and my turn to ride him in the arena by myself. As I started for the far end of the arena. I can feel Resistance in him not wanting to go. So I trotted him around the arena and the next time ask him for the lope. He is resisting going to the other end to the point of where when he did strike off into a lope that was in the wrong lead. I was not as concerned about the wrong lead as I was about him going forward. So I continued on around the arena and I can feel him wanting to go towards the out gate. He has already established that getting out that gate represents rest. So I had the gate person open the gate and allow the rest of the horses in the arena with me. He settled down and let me ride him around with the other horses in the arena and he got comfortable. I waited until the show was over and I went back into the arena and rode him to the far end of the arena and went out the gate on the far end to try to keep him wondering. Before I did this I had ridden him out away from the show and ridden him around the parking lot and rode him places he did not want to go. After awhile he started to accept being away from where he wanted to be and was starting to trust that when I ask him for something I mean what I say. Over all I was not pleased with his attitude about the night. I will have to work on this. He seemed to be irritated with me. He was throwing little rebellious fits. He would at times grab the bridle reins and push, trying to get me to release to him. He was clapping his teeth together in a frustrated gesture. He was rebellious about moving forward, sometimes he would pop up in the front end and turn around . Sometimes he would just back up and refuse to move forward. All of these are behaviors that to me are unacceptable. We will work on these tomorrow.
