After a day off, I again fitted the roller and the bridle, but this time I tied Flamenco's head slightly tighter on one side than the other, in order to get her to give to the pressure on the bit. She was left to her own devices like this for about 10 minutes, and then the other rein was tied shorter as well, allowing her to experience the bit pressure on both sides equally.
Again, Flamenco handled this stage of the training extremely well, and soon discovered that in order to lessen the pressure on her mouth she just had to turn her head slightly.
This method of starting a horse is now considered 'old fashioned', however it works and I am happy to commence a young horse's training in this way.
At this stage, I had to stop Flamenco's training for a few days, due to extremely wet weather that made the round yard too sloppy to work in. I turned her out into a small paddock with another horse, and she was happy to spend the next few days just being a horse! During this time I was able to walk up to her in the paddock and catch her with no problems at all.... a huge improvement over her previous behaviour.
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