Gina!!! Nice to hear from you. I'm do horses and clients full time now and loving it.

I agree. It's amazing how you can tune things out when you're focused on something else, LOL.

I ended up keeping her. She's a lovely soul and I use her to teach beginners.

The parasitic issue was handled by the vet. I didn't start working with her until the medical issues were resolved. The diameter of the round pen I use is 40 to 50 feet. That's about thirteen 12 ft panels. Getting the horse to turn into you is the tricky part. Its instinct tells it to turn away. The mechanics is this. Take 1 step in front of the driveline and hustle backward in order to release the pressure of your body position. Thus giving the horse the space and freedom to turn in and look at you. Once the nose of the horse is tipped into you, a space is created between the horse's shoulder and the fence. If you throw energy or pressure into this space, it will move the horse the other direction. The key is to get the horse to face up before asking it to change directions. Watch the video again. When the horse looks at me, I reward that behavior by quickly taking ALL pressure away and walking away. Soon the horse understands that if she faces me, I go away. At that point I can proceed to move her by putting the energy wave into the space I created with the face up. I hope this helps.

Well, you know what they say... 2 heads are better than 1 :)

Where to start... before I would get in the saddle, I would get respect on the ground! Fear, pain and/or disrespect are the 3 roots for bad behavior problems. It can be one or a combination of all three you need to deal with. The fact that he comes at you when you try to lunge him tells me that he is defensive. Defensiveness can be a symptom of fear, disrespect or both. Also, you have a impulsion issue. The horse doesn't want to move forward when asked to lunge and rearing is also due to lack of impulsion. You will need to free up his feet and get him moving forward. This will help with gaining the horses respect. How do we aquire respect in a horse...by moving their feet. So, on one hand, you need to move the horse's feet in order to gain respect and on the other hand you need to teach the horse to stand quietly so you can mount. Both these problems can be achieved through ground work. If standing still to mount was the ONLY issue, I would tell you to make "the wrong thing difficult and the right thing easy". When the horse moved as you started to mount, I would vigorously spin the horse by disengaging it's hindquarters and back it up as fast as I could. After 30 seconds of hustling its feet I would lead it quietly back to where I started to mount as if nothing happened and try again. When the horse moves again (and it will) I would repeat the spinning and back up process I just described until the horse connected the dots and realized that it's a lot easier and takes less energy to simply stand still for mounting. I would strongly suggest you get a qualified trainer to help with gaining this horse's respect on the ground. This respect will transfer to undersaddle as well. Good luck, be careful.

Erin, if your horse isn't ready to be around horse drawn wagons, being in a public parade is a train wreck waiting to happen. Work on your horse in a safe environment first. If you don't have a wagon find a reasonable facsimile like a 4 wheeler. The principle you need to use is approach and retreat. Find a safe starting point for your horse around the scary object (wagon) and work him away (do small circles) from the that starting point, then move as close as the horse will allow you and rest it there. Repeat the the exercise resting it closer and closer to the scary object until the horse associates rest and relaxation with being close to the scary thing. If you have a 4 wheeler, have someone drive it away from you and track it. Same as I did with the plastic bag in the beginning. Good luck, be safe.

@@SecondChanceEquine thanks! I'll try it :)