Green Broke

Today I decided that Nova is green broke. She has 15 rides on her, she has an amazing whoa. She actually slid stop yesterday a few inches! She has almost 100% steering. She stands still to mount, and saddle. She takes the bit ok. I need to bring a little honey out to flavor it with. We went out on a trail ride today.

All of my girls got to go actually! My mom took Dolly, a friend of mine took Roxy, and while I could have taken some other more broke horses, I wanted to take Nova. She did great! Nova has been on trail 3 days in a row, and she gets better every time. We usually just go around our block. Which constitutes a very quite back road, with some horse property on one side, and a very busy road with lots of large vehicles on the other side. It's perfect, you want a quiet ride go down and back the quiet road. Want to see some obstacles  go down the road side. But today we went far. We went all the way down under the highway, about 2 miles down the busy road. Nova was great. She spooked at a couch yesterday, didn't even flinch today when she saw it. She spooked at a car coming up behind her really fast once, and that was it. She amazes me. Roxy and Dolly were both great as well.

My girls before the ride.

Roxy has gotten out the last 3 days in a row, and I actually think that it's a little too much for her. Her leg seemed to bother her on Saturday. Which made her a really nice ride for my friend. Sometimes she can be a little spookish on trail if she hasn't been out recently enough. The mild discomfort kept her really calm. She was completely sound, just a little stiff. And the ride was by no means too much. It was a lot of walking, and less work then riding in the arena would have been for sure.

Overall I am super, super happy with Nova. She is amazing. However, she won't pick up her right lead. Does anyone have any suggestions for training techniques? My trainer's daughter says to ride more aggressively, but I really don't want to. Nova is so sweet, and so gentle, I really don't think riding her harder and reprimanding her is the right approach. She's not being naughty, I think she honestly doesn't know how to do it. Does anyone else have a gentle approach to encouraging picking up leads?

Homestead

Lately I have been feeling the over whelming urge to get a dairy cow. And chickens. Possibly a goat. Wouldn't it be wonderful to get fresh eggs, and cow's milk every morning? I think I need to quit my job and move to Colorado. Maybe I ought to do some more schooling first. The mini-farm will come later. Frankly- I think Dolly would love to be stall-mates with a goat.

I enjoy having my own stall, thank you very much. 

Hmm... Well perhaps I should just wait until I find a wealthy person who wants to invest in some horse property. And they want a young lady, full of passion are persistence to manage it. All wishful thinking for now. 

I'm Back!

Sorry about that long hiatus. Life just got a little crazy. Let me give you an update.

Gideon- 
He had absolutely no interest in being an arena horse. So I didn't think it was fair to try to make him into one when he would just be miserable. So I sold him. I found him a fantastic home as a husband's first trail horse. He lives up in the mountains, I get pictures and updates about him often. He has a great life, and his new dad just loves him.

Roxy-
Roxy is retired. She still hasn't really come back from her injured stifle. She's retiring to the life of a lesson horse. And she's doing really well at it! She's in two lessons a week. Both girls love her- they are young teenagers. One of the girls had her first lope on Roxy last Saturday! It is so fun to have trained my horse well enough that these kids can ride her, and equally as fun that I trained the kids well enough to handle her.

And I have some very exciting news. *drum roll* I bought a filly! She is a 3 year old buckskin Appaloosa. Registered name is RER Justa Fantasea. Her sire was Justa Cowboy, dam was Sea Freckles. She is absolutely stunning. This mare has the most elegant floaty gaits I have ever seen. She's 15.1, and right now 990lbs. That will be changing- this mare is OBESE. Here are some photos of this beauty. She needs a name. She is very elegant, she needs a name that fits. Something hopefully fast since she's a gymkhana horse. I was thinking seriously about Comet and Melody but those just don't fit her. I was also thinking Fancy, but I feel like that's a big thoroughbred name. Also thought about Fantasea but I know that we'll be calling her Fanta. Any ideas?

Update on the Herd!

Dolly is still awaiting her shoes. We are quite sad that she needs them, but she is getting older and it'll help her to have them.

Roxy is not nearly as lame as before! Two weeks later, and she is showing signs of improvement! I am so so excited. I thought for sure that she was going to need the $200 stifle injections. She is still quite lame, but so so much better. Please send happy thoughts her way.

It was super poor timing for Roxy to lame herself because if she was wound I would get to run flags at a rodeo! They are a girl short for flag runs. We literally don't have any other horses that will do it. So sad.


Gideon is doing quite well. I bought him some rice bran, so we can start packing on the pounds. He's looking amazing too. I emailed some photos of Gid to the boyfriend and he didn't even recognize him! All of the horses are 90% shed out, and Gideon is especially beautiful. He's looking less dappled on one side, but his other side looks very dappled, so it's a mystery! His coat is looking super shiny and beautiful too. I've had him about 2 months now, here are some before pictures.

Emaciated, depressed, and extremely poor overall. Gideon needed some serious TLC.

2 months later, I am happy to say he is doing great! His ground manners are improving drastically, his coat is so shiny (a sign of health), he has gained about 50 pounds, and he is such a happy little guy!

 Here is a video of Gideon turned out. 

I got a new phone! It's an HTC Vivid, quite a step up from my little samsung strive. This phone is super cool. I took that video with it, and most of the pictures that I have recently posted I took with it. I can give it verbal streaming commands, like "send text to mom, how are you?" or I can search google automatically. It's super cool, I highly recommend buying one. It's a million times better then the iphone and for far less moola.

Anything cool happening to you?

The Vet

Today was madness at the ranch. I left work early, hoped into my car, and then prepared myself for the crazy!
I as soon as I jumped out of the car I was giving a list of pretty much all of the horses to halter and leave in their stalls. My fantastic vet went from stall to stall giving 2 shots, and checking teeth on over 30 horses across the ranch. Some (like all three of mine) were getting a little extra. Here is what he said about them.

The hole under Dolly's chest is still open because there is some foreign body still in it. But he doesn't want to do surgery again since it's really fine (I've been meaning to tell Dolly's story forever! I promise I will eventually). My BO/trainer says that she wants it to close up. So we are going to shoot peroxide into it, hose it off, and blue coat it every day! I don't think that it will ever close up all the way, but at least her mouth did!

Roxy's lump will probably be there forever, and her lameness is in the stifle. It pops, and has fluid in it. He said to give it a week, my BO says she will probably need injections. This kills me. Only partially because of the cost, but mostly because Roxy isn't even 10 years old, she already has one condition and she doesn't need one that will affect her comfort for the rest of her life. She is a gymkhana horse, her stifle gets a lot of use. And she truly loves to be ridden, and to run. I would hate for that joy away from her.

So what about Gideon? I haltered him with a stud chain- he is super rude on the ground, so he'll be in a stud chain for a few weeks as he learns to be respectful. I told the vet that he was a rescue, we've had him for a month. The vet says just to feed him alfalfa to gain weight, but at nearly $20 a bale that's a little out of my budget. So I'll be putting him on red cell and rice grain, bran? I forget which. Beet pulp was suggested by a friend, but my BO instantly vetoed it. It is really hard on a digestive system, and Gideon is not strong yet. He does not need his teeth done, and I found out his age!

So how old do you think this handsome boy is?