Every moment you spend with your horse is telling them something. That's why in the first year of Shine's life, I tried to go out to see him every single day. Just a few minutes multipled a few hundred times turns out to be quite a lot of time.
I remember on Thanksgiving the first year I owned him, I had so far been out to visit him every single day. Well I decided that day would be no different and I would make time to spend a few minutes with him among the festivities. Well, I turned out that I didn't have a chance to go out there till 11:15 pm. I still made the drive with my Dad and enjoyed a few flashlight moments of petting him and brushing his legs. I feel that Shine really trusts me now. When we're in a new situation, he might start with a flight response, but then he realizes quickly that I'm okay and he is okay too. That's where all that spending time with him comes into play. You can't get a horse used to all situations right away, but you can give them each a foundation of training both with and without the saddle that they can fall back on in those times when they find a new obstacle to overcome.
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