As we continued to work with saddling this week, Roach showed me that he was still uncomfortable with the initial cinch pressure & that we shouldn't proceed with a first ride yet. He still gets pretty reactive & wants to buck when he first feels the cinches grab him. Once he gets beyond that, he settles down nicely, but he needs to learn to work through that better mentally (& physically) so that he doesn't feel the need to respond that way if he gets started during a ride.
To help him work through this, I pulled out my soft cotton rope so that I could provide a release when Roach gives the correct answer, which is something that I can't do with the saddle. While he was reactive to the pressure at first (especially around his flank), he got so comfortable with it that I could lead him using the pressure around his belly.
On Wednesday, Roach received his first bath during the nice weather & did great!
We've also been spending more time standing tied & he's been doing well there, too.
We'll continue to work with the rope until he has little to no reaction to it at the start of a session.
Next week's update will be posted on Friday.