Betty was developing a real rapport with Lucky. She could do all sorts of things with him that would ordinarily send him into a panic. For example he originally was violently protective of his legs. Even after quite a bit of work he was protective of them. We snapped these photos of Betty working with Lucky in these trouble spots.
Lifting front legs	Going down the hindquarters
Lucky's Big Breakthrough While Lucky would go along with all of these activities, he was still pretty guarded around people. We had a number of people out on Sunday including Hue Simpson. Hue gave Lucky a dose of herbal calmative and did a little body work with him. Then it was time for the rubber to meet the road. Lucky would still get very disturbed by people moving their arms about, especially if they were higher than he was. We put Lucky in the pipe panel round pen, encircled the pen with people and started waving our arms. We also had clicker targets and treats. One person would offer the target while the others waved their arms. At first Lucky was anxious but he soon looked through all the wavers in search of a target and click treat. Before too long most of us had climbed to the top of the fence rail and were doing the "Hokey Pokey" dance while Lucky shopped for treats. We later moved to the other round pen to change the environment and at one point one person worked with him in the round pen while people up on the sides waved at him. (Unfortunately we were all pretty busy and nobody had time to find a camera. The next day Lucky was much calmer overall about people coming and going. In fact he would come up to us precociously when we entered his pen. On Tuesday Betty was working with him, tossing ropes over his back, picking up feet, etc., and he was tolerating it quite well. We decided to see what else he would tolerate (as shown below.)

Saddle pad Walking around with a bareback pad Rubbing with the saddle	Lowering his head Approaching with the saddle Saddle on
Will Lucky actually turn into a saddle horse? We'll see. Continue to Part Five Return to Part Three	Lucky with Betty (ground tied)
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