Our First Week

That is a pretty big question really for anyone to answer, who is so and so...I hope to paint you a picture of this sweet mare so that you can get to know her like I am. Getting to know a new horse is really a challenge and super fun. At first they are stand offish and pretty soon you start to see them loosen up, play a little, maybe play a lot, find out what they are afraid of, find out where they like to be scratched and just how much, and so much more. Just like any new relationship, we take it slow at first, asking more on their part as we grow. Balancing getting the job done with going how fast the horse needs is important. I think this is where "trainers" fail, they feel that they must accomplish so much in such a short time they push the horses beyond themselves and the horse is lost.

So Sasha seems to have a few levels to her. She has a patient, I'll just stand here and you brush my tail side. She has a I am not sure of this can I climb in your pocket side. She also has the herd is too far away got to move my feet and see if I can get back to them side...

She loves her belly scratched. She has taken to Tresa, just like Cloud did, must be Tresa's job to make friends with the new kids. She has scars on the inside of her stifle, some fairly traumatic event happened, can only imagine. Although she does not mind touching and rubbing her hind legs, she did not like to pick them up for anything. She loves her treats and works extra hard for them, however, she also doesn't take them very politely, so 1) not too many treats for her, but 2) she might get them for giving me those hind legs!

During this first week we have been mostly working on those hind legs. I am happy to report that I was able to pick both out today. At first I was simply asking her to stand still, and second to just shift her weight. She was getting good at that, so we added just lift it an inch, now we can go 6 inches and for 20 seconds. I hope to have those feet trimmed in the next two weeks, she needs it. Front feet seem fine, although the first couple of times she did want to pull away. More trust now so she has been great.

I sat on her bareback a couple of times. That was after playing with the bareback pad. She seems to be a bit "cinchy" (moves, ears back, turning her head as I tighten the cinch.) So we are playing with that, and I am being very respectful and slow about making the cinch tight. Today I put the western saddle on and she wears it well. She is only 14.3 maybe, but longish, so the big Circle Y looks good.

When she gets in shape, she is going to have some nice muscle definition.

As you can see I hung all my stuff on her too as we were loading them up to go to the arena and we were too lazy to carry all that stuff ourselves. That's their job anyway! She stood very nicely tacking up, just the cinchy part, but not too bad.

This was her second trip over to the arena. Last time she rode by herself, them we picked up Boo (Trina's horse.) She loaded fine and seemed ok, but came out of the trailer very sweaty. A bit of nervousness that we didn't see before on her trip to my house. Today she showed that same nervousness, however, still loaded just fine. It wasn't as bad, but still sweated quite a bit. That I think will just take lots of trips to get over.

She was very good today at the arena. We played all the games on the ground and she was really starting to move laterally very nicely. She is not afraid of the ball, when it is on the ground. Trina was playing with it bouncing around for Boo and that she wasn't so keen on, so we did little bouncing with her and will come back to that again. I bounced the little ball all over her and that was better.The tarp was out last time we came and she walked over that without hesitation and doesn't seem to shy at much.

 

 

 

Ball is almost as big as she is!

I rode her for only 20 minutes or so. Just wandering and checking our brakes and gas pedal. Brakes are fine, gas pedal is kinda sticky. Meaning right now she seems to have more whoa than go! She seems very comfortable with me up there, she just doesn't seem to know what I mean when I say let's go!

At first I was going to say that she doesn't come close to how smart Cloud is, but I am changing that opinion daily. I just think she has less trust than Cloud, so she is more skeptical of what I am asking her. Not quite as happy go lucky as Cloud, but we will find that side of her, I think it's in there, someone told her not to play somewhere along the line. Someone told her to just grow up and now here I am telling her it's ok to laugh again!

More soon!