Lolyn, my almost-6-month-old weanling colt, is doing really well at pretty much everything. He leads will, ties reasonably well, stands for a bath, and is generally pretty well behaved. BUT, for some reason, I am having a helluva time teaching him to pick up his feet.
For whatever reason, he thinks having to pick up his feet is the absolutely worst thing in the world. He never kicks UNLESS I'm trying to pick up his feet, and at this point, he's taken to kicking the second he sees me bending over to grab his foot.
So far, this is what I've been doing:
-Tie him, and wait until he's standing calmly.
-Run my hands over his back and shoulders and slowly work my way down to his feet. He loves attention, but the second my hands start going down his legs, he starts getting jittery and trying to move away.
-As soon as he feel me pinch lightly on his tendon, (front foot) he kicks forward with one of his back feet. He's gotten me on both the head and the shoulder kicking this way (the bruises were epic 
), and as a result I've gotten nervous about trying to pick up his feet- which he senses and then takes advantage of.
-I do my best to evade the inevitable kick, and then pick up his front foot. He FREAKS out, and tries to pull away. I hang on, so he doesn't learn that he can pull away from me. He gets even more frantic. I continue to hang on. I do my best to support his weight so that he can balance, but he's scrambling and flailing so it doesn't really work. If I continue to hang on, he goes down and continues to panic. If I let go, he learns that he can pull away if he freaks out. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Okay, so my disclaimer is this: I am TOTALLY new to weanlings/foals. Lolyn is the first one I've ever dealt with. I KNOW that I am probably doing something very wrong here and that it's probably pretty obvious to those experienced with weanlings. I've never trained a horse before, and I'm determined to make this work- but I fully admit that I am total newb at this and I will appreciate any advice that anyone can give me.
So...how can I teach him to not flip out when I go for his feet? Everything else we're working on is going really well except this. He and I have a good relationship and I feel that he respects me- but for some reason he just gets absolutely terrified when I go to pick up his feet.