So a update on Chance, hes doing great! Hes gaining weight and has a lot more energy, he comes trotting up to the gate which was not normal for him when we first got him, its only been a week, but theres been a big improvement in his physical condition,the flies arn't bugging him so his legs are healing up, his sunburn is almost completly gone and hes gained weight! Heres the videos of how we care for his legs and a picture of a comparison of his weight gain!
Anyways I can't remember which day it was but we got out the horses and rode for awhile, and Chuck and I practiced on barrels, he did super good, and if all goes well we might go out to brushy this weekend and work with a friend of ours who does barrels with her horses too.... Roni and Jack worked on Jumping heres some videos
Okay, so new horse, were all calling him Chance already, so were thinking we will name him that :)
He is an older horse, who (from what we have been told) came off a working ranch in Oklahoma... the lady who had him had gotten him in February, and adjusting he had to have a blanket going from 60 degree temps to 0 degrees.... he didn't have the time to grow a winter coat.... like I said he is an older horse, around 30, but with the right care he could be around for quite a few more years :)
he was offered on our states horse page, the person only wanted $150 for him, but in the end she just gave him to us, the lady had a lot of horses and her husband gave her the ultimatum and said she had to get rid of all her horses and dogs.... she tries to rescue horses, but didn't have the funds to support it, she had him, a mare and foal, her paint, a soral gelding, and at least one other horse, so we took him off her hands, my mom went and looked at him, but my mom isn't really horse savy, so Roni, Nick, Alex and I went over there later that day, he was having his hooves done, and he was really well behaved the paint mare on the other hand needed an attitude adjustment, rearing for the farrier is not a good habit to practice..... so we said we would get back to him, we talked about it on the way home, and we decided we would give him a shot...... I had to drive the horse trailer (for the first time and its a gooseneck not some little itty bity 2 horse thing, we can fit 6 horses in it) and I was really happy with how well I did, for my 16th birthday I want to haul the horses to brushy and camp out with Roni by myself :) anyways we got there and one of the ladys little girls was crying because she didn't want him to leave, the ladys older daughter went out and got him, and brought him up and handed him to me, I brought him out, I asked the little girl who was crying to load him up, so she could show me how good of a boy she was and she did I held him and she went out as nick closed the door, I let him loose and came out, and the little girls both got upset, so I told them to come back with me while Nick and the lady talked about a whole bunch of stuff.... so I opened up the escape door at the end of the trailer and Chance was sticking his head out and the girls were feeding him grass they picked and eventually the adults were done talking and I told them to give him goodbye kisses and they did, I told them, we only lived a little bit away and they could come see him when he was doing better and they said okay, gave him a few more bites of grass, and I closed up the door and we headed home, we brought him back and started cleaning his wounds and everything else... I will take a video when we care for him tonight and upload it..... so far his only bad habits are he is scared of our fly sprayer (we use a pump farm sprayer) and he likes to rub his head on people....... I will post the video later tonight!!!
Hey guys so I have to make this short, but today we picked up a new horse, we are thinking we might name him Chance, because this guy really needed a second chance, he needs ALOT of work, but he is so gentle, love him already!!!
He is quite skinny.....
such a pretty face, it will be lots better once it heals....
the worst of his legs, they were eaten to shreds by flies...... I spent awhile doctering him up tonight.....
a shot from his withers you can see his spine......
He had REALLY BAD sunburn that blistered and peeled and is still healing
again some more sunburn.....
He is quite skinny and needs some good grass......
Hey guys, so Saturday I told you I had something planned for this weekend, so heres a post about it.....
okay, so we went to Brushy again! I knew we were going, but just wanted to save it :) we just had to wait until our lesson was over, we thought about going Saturday night, but we forgot we were going to the Jewell Fireworks which was fun :) so we left Sunday morning and went it was 80 degrees with 100% humidity so we didn't go out right away, and a guy came over and started talking to us about Jet and said he looked very similar to a horse he had had a few years ago, we figured out its not, but he knew a little bit about his sire and dam and said he liked their lines too, he used to be into racing so maybe thats what Jets dam did or her lines anyway because I know his sire is a paint/qh cross, but Jet has more of a TB look with the long legs and long neck.... anyways it cooled off so we all tacked up and went over to the arena, I worked with Copper on the ground and Randy worked with Chuck, that way Randy could get more experience and so could Copper... Then Nick got on Copper, I got on Jet, Randy got on Chuck and Roni got on Jack, we rode for awhile the horses all got a good workout, then we rode back to the campsite and we let the horses cool down a bit, we tied copper with our horses and it was very funny watching them figure out who was boss, Jack and Copper went back and fourth nipping eachother, and it was really funny because Jack would squeal and stomp his foot, and then Copper tried to pick on Chuck but Chuck didn't put up with it and nipped him in the neck hard and then Copper went and rubbed his neck on the side of the post lol it was quite comical to watch them! Here is a short video it had gone on for a few minutes before I started it and Chuck nipped Copper at around 5 minutes.....
We had lunch and dinner while the horses stood around and ate, we waited for it to cool down, then we decided to go on a trail ride, it was really quite fun, there were 2 big hills, and the horses couldn't help but trot down because they were really steep, and they had to trot back up them, it was really fun because I had Chuck go last and I could watch everyone else, but other than the hills I was the trail leader and Nick usually brought up the back..... we went on the trail for awhile and we rode 2 miles out and 2 miles back and the hills were fun again on the way back, the very first hill is the steepest so the horses really have to work at getting up it, Chuck galloped up it, it was very fun, as soon as it got flat though, he slowed down and chilled out, then we went over to the arena for a bit to play around, Randy Roni and I did some barrel patterns and I figured out that either Chuck really responds well to my ques or he has done barrels before, but I think it is the second of the two because he goes crazy and goes for the 3rd barrel and turns and burns it, we didn't run full speed because the arena was muddy, the mud came up past the horses hooves so the fastest we did it was a quick canter at 26 seconds so here are 2 videos one of Randy and Copper and one of Chuck and I in that order....
After that we went back, took care of the horses and went to sleep, when I got up we let the horses out and ate, and so did the horses and we all got ready to go back out on the trail, same trail because it was warm again, and the shade would be nice and we didn't want to overheat the horses, we went further on Monday, all the way to the bridge on the way there there was a hill and about half way down there was a little cement thing that kept the trail from washing out Chuck put his head down and I squeezed him on, and he hopped like straight up and barley forward lol I stopped him and fell on his neck laughing like a goon, I looked behind me and everybody else was quite close comming down the hill and it was very funny when they all came down, copper and Jack go side by side and hit the breaks and put their heads down, then Jet bumped into them lol it was funny and we were all laughing like idiots, a little further ahead was a rock peir that led out to a bridge, Chuck kept staring intently at the big rocks on the side of the trail, but once we got past the 2 big ones he walked on the peir nicely, then we got to the bridge, and we tried crossing it, I knew that Chuck would cross bells mill bridge but this one was a considerably more narrow bridge, made only for foot trafic, bells mill you can fit 2 small cars on, so Chuck didn't want to cross and the other horses were nervous, so we hopped off and led them across, and Randys saddle got messed up so we stopped and fixed that, and by the time we were done with that it was time to head back, we mounted up and rode them back across the bridge, and they did just fine, Chuck didn't even bat an eye....
We rode back and had fun going up and down the hill again, and I took a video the last time, but the video doesn't do it justice, if your in my area just go there and see for yourself it sure is a fun ride, we went back and got packed up and ready to go because roni and I had our meeting for detasiling and we start sometime between tomorrow and the 12 and on the 12 I am going on a trip with my dad to a local amusement park and one of the rides even has my last name in it :) can't wait to go on it :) Here are the rest of the videos and some pictures from Brushy.....
above is a short clip of the ride and the cement thing on the trail when we came back, they didn't even care the second time....
below is another clip of our ride....
Below is a video of the hill, as you can see we had to wait for each horse to go, we figured that out the second time around it works much better that way :) there was a DNR waiting at the top checking and he asked about how the trail looked and if we saw anybody out there..... Below this video is one of Jets bow that we have improved on....
The pretty clouds from our ride saturday night....
Hey guys a little update on todays riding lesson, I had trouble with Mavrick today, he loves to stay on the wall, then later he didn't want to stay on the wall lol, sometimes its hard to ride our lesson horses, they don't get consistant riders, every hour they get new riders, and to be honest with you there arn't many older riders at our barn and some of the ones that are arn't even that good, so it can be difficult at times to have gotten a really good ride at the end after a lot of work, then to come back next time and have all that work undone by crappy riders.... but it really makes us work on our skills... we are constantly trying to make the horses better and that makes us even better riders
Here is a recording of our lesson from today, part 1 and part 2
Hey guys thought I would show you this cool video, a high level jumper lost his bridle, he was able to keep the bit in the horses mouth and finished his ride, the horse handled it very well, they were just very lucky the horses legs didn't get caught in it and tear his mouth!
Hey guys, so a small update today we rode today, and we finally got my saddle done so I rode in that, Roni rode english, I worked with Chuck, but he hasn't been worked with much and we didn't do much for ground work, so he was a little hyped up, but once I let him get the energy out he calmed down nice and good, today was Chucks first time working with the flag he did very good with it, he didn't really think much of it, I even drapped it over his head so he couldn't see and rode him that way for a bit and he did good with that too.... not much for videos today one of me riding chuck with the flag, and the only ground work I did with the flag....
after a bit I was done with the flag and Chuck got excited again so I let him get it out and we were cantering, he was going fine and quieting down, and then he tripped and his head went right into the ground and his legs came up under him and his leg got caught in the breast collar and as you can see from the video it was adjusted properly, but anyways my saddle got broken from him getting his leg un-stuck but its an easy fix all we need to do is replace the D ring that got ripped out, he was fine and no worse for wear so we continued and he finally got calmed down again and we went both ways good so I let him be done, I rode him out into the pasture and got off, undid his girth so he could really get nice deep breaths and cool off, so I walked him till his breathing was normal and rinsed him off like I do after every ride... and I let him go....
I am super proud of Roni and Jack because they just started jumping tonight and they did amazing! Jack doesn't like to lift his legs at all, and it was ronis first time jumping and she did pretty good especially cause Jack has never jumped before and drags his legs and trips a lot overall it was an amazing night!
Today was the "exception" for Jet because today he began his learning on tricks, today we started bow and lay down, it went very good! the way I train it is how most others do it, except lots of people tie the leg, but I like to be able to release as to teach and not just force them down first try, but it only took 20 minutes, he is very good and so sweet about it, he caught on really quick, we did the first lay down, but I am going to lay off those until he gets bow down good for now, maybe a few times a month to start out until he gets bow down really well will help him.... eventually it will be a smaller que for it, but right now we are just trying to get him confortable being on the ground in the bow position, I don't let him go until he bows and relaxes, that way he knows thats what he needs to do to get to stand back up... anyways here are some videos for you guys and a few pictures from when chez was over that i forgot, this is the beginning of Chucks trick training too!
Like I said our yard is quite wet, so here are some videos from it!
Now the short video with a bow and the lay down and fallowed by that is the 22 minute long version!
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