We put a saddle on him today

I went over to see Chief today. Jaye had brushed him and put a saddle pad on him, then he thought it would be a good idea to roll. He was dirty and the saddle pad was laying on the ground when I arrived. So I brushed him again and put a different pad on him. He is a very nice horse, very expressive and will give you his opinion about things. He was telling me that he really didn't want to wear a saddle pad. He walked away a couple of times so I did what I could to take the pressure off, gave him treats, scratched him and brushed him. I guess that was okay because then he was okay with the pad and the saddle. The bridle was different. It took Jaye and I quite a while to help him feel okay about it. His ears are sensitive (mostly the right one) and I am guessing that he has always been handled without much thought to how he felt about things. He finally accepted the bridle and off we went for a walk. Jaye rode Striker behind us. It went well, we stopped soon after we got out on the rode and I think he had too many thoughts going through his head all at once. It could have been that we were standing in mud and water, or that the trees around us were too scary, or that Striker was behind us, or just all of it at once but he stopped thinking for a few minutes and had a small melt down. As soon as I had his attention and he was calm again we went back. He was feeling okay and glad to be home. We gave him lots to think about today, so I made sure to leave on a good note. He was back in the round pen so I went in with more treats. At first he walked away from me, probably wondering "What Now?!" I crouched down in the middle of the paddock with my hand out holding a treat. It only took a couple of minutes and he came back to me happy that I only wanted to feed him. I'm going to try to get over there and walk him a couple of times a week. He really needs to build some muscle in his hind end.