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Mixed bag tonight. He was brilliant with wwylm on the right, staying right with me but on the left he tends to drift behind me so that he's almost walking on my heels. Even though I am holding the carrot at right angles to get him as far from me as possible, he just curves that long elegant neck around and takes it without shifting his body. It's something to work on, difficult because I can't turn around to see what position he's in, I can only judge from the angle of his neck...or feeling his hooves or chest. Still not a good thing when he's aroused.

He nickers almost constantly. Again he trotted over to meet me when I entered the paddock. We had a few evasions for I got enthusiastic and worked too long. But it was more playful tonight. Naturally. Not because I had to think about it. Was just so pleased he was pleased. Head down either prompt or with hesitation. DId some rapid fire c/t's for head down to try and implant the idea. He offers it when I'm not asking, along with backup.

Worked on having him back and stay back until I walked over with the treat, a matter of only a step. Half successful but as we've just started that I'm not concerned. Did have him back four or five steps so that was good. He had a little mug attempt, not quite touching but leaning in and sniffing. If I hadn't blocked or twisted away it would've got worse but at least he isn't as determined as before so there is steady improvement. The mirroring is getting better. Sometimes with very little hesitation. Tried tonight to introduce the first steps of 'playing', me trotting one side to the other in front of him to get him to change direction. Hopefully this will lead to a dance as I've seen on you tube.

I don't want to mix things up too much and confuse or overface him (and we did get those couple of evasions tonight) but I also don't want to drill either. We are covering the same ground with mirroring, wwylm from both sides, head down and a little back up but as he gets the idea I think it's a good idea to playfully introduce some other elements. Tried again to walk into his face with my hands at shoulder height to get him to yield. He kept backing up so I backed up with him so that I didn't lose my position at his face. When he side-stepped a tiny little step I jack potted. Tried again immediately and got the side step much faster, only one back up step so rewarded that too.

We almost stopped on an evasion but I returned to him and asked for a head down so that I could give him the last two carrots.