Caught again

This morning when I worked with Cabrito, I decided to see if I could get him haltered without roping him first. He did very well with letting me walk up to him and rub his neck and rub him with the halter. But, when I got his nose in the halter, he got bothered a couple of times and pulled away. I didn't want him to get in the habit of pulling away when I go to halter him, so I tied the lead rope loosly around his neck so I would have something I could help him stay with instead of trying to hold him there with the halter halfway on. A couple of times on working through that and he let me slip the halter on just fine. Then I worked a little bit more with trying to rub his face a little bit. He did much better and was letting me rub his muzzle without too much fuss. Then I worked my way up to the bridge of his nose and between his eyes. He didn't like that much at first, but pretty quick he was lowering his head and closing his eyes while I scratched his face. I spent a lot of time rubbing him in new places today, like the very middle of his chest, the top of his poll, down his legs, his belly, flank and touched and picked up his tail. Cabrito stayed so relaxed with this, I think he's really starting to trust me. I could tell that he would stiffen up a little with concern, but quickly relax when he realized that nothing bad happened and I removed the pressure. I drapped the lead rope over his back and let it swing a little and moved it all over his body from both sides. He's still not as comfortable with me on his right side, but he did allow me to do everything there that I did on the left side. We ended today's session with some leading stuff and seeing just how slight a pressure I could get him to yield to (which was very slight - he is quite sensitive and will be one of those horses that you can get to respond off a "thought"). I'm really glad that I was able to be successful today and am still making small progresses. I hope that all this extra time that I've had to take in the beginnning will allow me to catch up a bit in the next 2 months before the competition!