A good day with a bad end

It seems Ashley, my mare, and Nine get along very well. They have been together in the round pen almost all day, and nothing has gone wrong. Unless you count the fact that now Nine doesn't want to go anywhere except next to Ashley.

I had made some excellent progress this morning when I figured out exactly what was bothering Nine about saddling. I don't think it is all out of fear for the saddle. I noticed that when I am only putting a blanket on him, I only use one arm, always the arm farthest from Nine's head. But when I come at him with the saddle, I use both arms, owing to the increased weight. So he not only gets a big scary horse-eating chunk of leather on his back, but also a smaller scary arm right next to his head that he has never seen there before! So I worked with him by using both arms to heft the blanket on his back, and coming at him from farther and farther away, because if he sees it, it is a million times as scary. When he can't see the blanket coming for him he has no problems. He was getting better about that when I decided to take a lunch break, and let Nine and Ashley just hang out together.

When I went back out to work some more on the blanket throwing, I discovered that Nine will not leave Ashley's side without a serious effort on my part. I am not at all happy about this. Nine has not made any progress at all with leading in the past two or three weeks, and I just don't know what to do about it. He was doing okay with leading, so long as I was in front of him by two feet or so, and Ashley was nowhere to be a distraction. Now, I need to be further away, and really pull on that lead rope before he budges. This is NOT the way I want it to be! Just before I got in the round pen with Nine, I had lead my other Mustang, who I have had for about four years, into Ashley's pen (currently empty as Ashley was in with Nine). I did not need even a string for Hammar (other Mustang); instead I just walked right up to him, put a hand on his jaw, and he lead right in as well as could be. I don't remember how I taught Hammar to do that! I don't think I taught him that, he just does it. When I got Hammar he was almost as wild as Nine was. But I just don't remember how I trained Hammar to do any of the things he does. I wasn't paying attention, I suppose.

The point is, the day started out with an amazing breakthrough, I was finally doing something right and progressive with Nine, but this past half hour has reveled that I still have a looooooong way to go. I am tired of him not leading, and jerking away from me, and all those sorts of things. Right now he is tied up to an inner tube, and tonight I was planning on leaving a lead rope on him, once I put Ashley in her own pen again of course. Hopefully these things will help Nine learn to give to the pressure of the rope. Any other ideas how to get Mr. Stubborn to lead like a normal horse? I am at a loss here.