Thank you, reignmaker. I have dragged poles with him before, but it has been a while and I had a helper. This time I thought I could do it myself. The first 50 feet were fine, and I thought we were going to do fine; then he lost it. I could not turn loose of him to slip the loops off to release the poles, and I decided anyway that if I took off the poles he would consider himself the victor. We advanced one step at a time; I wanted him to know that he would stop when I said so. Luckily, my husband came up then and watched until we got back to the halter area, then he took the poles off while I held Nugget. He is not a "horse guy"; he doesn't know how to help. I've learned from the past not to get him to help with training. But it sure was nice for him to be there to remove the poles!