Sandee - he looks great and that's an awesome way to de-sensitize and train. Love yours and your daughhters' costumes/decorations!
It took me years to get our Hackney mare to where we could do this - but she spent 12 years in show barns and show rings (only) and just being in a pasture seemed to cause her to have anxiety attacks at first (I mistakenly took her directly from a barn situation to a 5 acre pasture and I thought the "poor thing" was gonna "shake" herself to death for the first several months. Every new sound in the trees, fallen leaves crackling under foot, animals moving seperate from her herdmates - were grounds for freezing in place, shaking, and then "running" hard and crazily at a high trot for a while).
His injury has allowed you to bond and to develop another manner of training - albeit it would have been nice for both not tho have had one, sometimes it helps... GOOD for you for turning a bad situation into a great one.
Thanks for sharing!
My daughter drove and I lead the Shetland.
