(soft upbeat music)
- Oh, good boy.
- Welcome. Today we're going to be talking about
playing with your horse.
I'm out here playing with Legend
and I love playing with my horses.
It's a great way to connect with them and build a stronger
relationship and a stronger bond.
So today I'm going to be sharing with you
four different games that you can play with your horse.
Push it over. Come on. Push it over.
Good boy.
So what makes a great game with your horse?
There are four things that I think about when it comes to
creating a game with my horse and there's so much you can
do, but the four things that I think about are
number one, what is our mindset
going into our game together?
Having a fun and playful mindset can help set the tone for
us and our horse to enjoy our time together.
Number two, adding movement.
Horses naturally play through movement,
so when we incorporate movement into our game,
it helps to make it more engaging for us and our horse.
Number three, using an obstacle to build curiosity.
Horses are very naturally curious,
and when we incorporate obstacles into our game,
it helps to make it more fun for our horse and for us.
Number four, playing on the ground.
Horses naturally interact and play on the ground together.
So I like playing with my horses on the ground.
Game one, seek and touch.
In this game I'm going to be having my horse
seek an object and touch it.
Here I'm using a target
and I want Sonic to seek the green point in the target
and touch it.
If you have a horse that has never played with a target
before you can introduce it over a fence
like I'm doing here with Zoloft.
This is a safe way and a fun way to start introducing your
horse to the target.
Z, go touch it, go touch it.
Good boy.
Once you can hold the target and your horse can touch it,
you can then set it in different locations in the ring,
have them touch it in different locations.
Good boy.
Once your horse is able to touch the target consistently,
you can start introducing other obstacles
or objects to your horse.
Touch, touch.
Good boy.
Trot and switch.
To start this game off,
I'm going to introduce it at the walk,
by just walking down, switching hands
and switching directions.
Once my horse and I are good at this,
we're going to do it at the track.
Switch.
Playing at liberty.
I usually start off at the walk,
and then we move to the track together.
Playing at liberty can be such a magical experience.
As you and your horse are playing at liberty together,
It's fun to introduce different tricks into the mix.
Here I'm asking Legend to lay down.
Game four is playing with a ball.
Crosby, push it.
Good boy.
This is Crosby's first time
learning how to play with the ball.
Push it. Other way.
Push it. Good boy.
It's always fun to see your horse figure this out
for the first time.
Here Crosby's got it down and we're now in the ring
playing with the ball a little more.
Push the ball. Crosby. Push it.
Good boy.
Crosby. Come here, bud.
Push the ball.
Good boy.
Legend is a really fun horse to play with a ball with.
He always gets really excited and it's always fun to share
that time with him just playing around.
♪ Get rid of all your sorrows ♪
♪ In the summer city. ♪
♪ Never feel alone ♪
♪ As long as you're with me. ♪
♪ Get rid of all your sorrows ♪
♪ In the summer city ♪
♪ There's no place on earth ♪
♪ I would rather be. ♪
(upbeat happy music)
Touch it. Touch it, buddy.
Touch it.
Oh. Well not the camera.
Nope.
Come here buddy.
Come on away from there.
(upbeat music)