Breeding and Another Trail Ride

Since I have slacked off on keeping you updated were going to start with the present and regress this may be long this may be short. I currently have a cold yet again. Will the weather ever make up its mind! I swear.

I started today way to early for my taste buds! I had my PTC test today which was pretty easy. I scored very well on my reading. Too many romance novels I suppose! My writing was a little lower than I thought but then again I am still working on it. My math was a plain joke, I scored very low. The test was completely done on the computer and only took me an hour and 12 minuets. I then dropped off my the only paper I filled out which was a basic info sheet at the consolers office. I already have an appointment to see her for tomorrow at 2:00. I’m largely awaiting my schedule so I can work around it. I would like to take a few classes at my current school and I have a girl who wants to take lessons. So I’m kinda on the fence until I know what my schedule is.

After that mom and I went to lunch and as we left we both spotted the nail place. She the offers to pay for my nails. The last time I had fake nails was like when I was 12. Sounds silly I know but I had them for a long time. I have a really cool mom! Ha ha, anyway so I tell the guy I work with horses and he give me like the industrial version of nails! They are so nice. There super thick, square and he used a very hard coating over the top to keep them hard. They have got to be the best set I have ever had. I got the French but instead of the plain white I got a glitter white. I almost got the glitter blue but figured white goes with anything. The one thing that I forgot was how fricken bad they ache when your first get them! Oh my gosh, you have no idea how they ache, typing is proving to be challenge. Every time I use my thumb nail instead of the thumb to hit space it sent a little wave up my nail. Ugg.

So once I get back home Liz wants to go for a ride. I spent a while relaxing and deciding if I wanted to ride Wynter out there or not. I did. Hooking the trailer up I lunged him in the round pen to get the freshness off. He was very very fresh yesterday but that was mainly because he hadn’t ridden him for three days…. So I have been slacking I’m sorry. We was really good in the round pen a lot more chilled out today than yesterday, which I will go over later.

We throw him in the trailer and head out. When we unload him he is like, ‘um not this again.’ He knew what was gong on the second I unladed him. Today it was just Liz and I so we took the to boys Wynter and Arlo. I tied Wyn right next to Arlo and he never once nickered or showed that he cared, he was mainly concerned about why he was here.

Has anyone run into this problem. If Wynter shakes or rubs his head his can get his halter off his ears. Not the best skill for a stallion to posses. Now he has a triple stitched leather halter that adjusts in every possible way. It fits him correctly. Around his head ect. If I tighten it anymore he will chocked by it! So I don’t know what to do about that I can’t leave him tied anywhere that isn’t closed off because he can get loose. So as I was putting my spurs on Liz and I were yelling at him for rubbing his head. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this?

When we first head out he was really ready for the ride! Arlo was a little concerned with this guy walking so close and so eager behind him. He kept look back at him like hey I’m a dude back off. It was funny we laughed for a while. With no mares Wyn was able to relax a little. We went around the other direction is instead of the one with all the logs and sticks. This way is a lot shorter and open, we usually run on it because its really good footing. Since Wynter was so fresh we walked the whole thing. When we hit the woods Wynter was a little edgy and wasn’t sure about this whole idea. He was pretty tip toie. We went down to the water and today he was not into it. He balked for a second and I got him to go forward. I always release when he goes forward. So we took baby steps and once he was in the water he was a little quick to go through it.

The end of the next trail was a puddle with mud. Today I decided he could get over the idea that he could go around them. There is also like 6 mud pits on the next trail and it rained so I knew it would be great training ground. He did not like the idea. With most horses if you make them they usually catapult over things. I figured out by the time we were done with out ride that he isn’t the catapulting type. After he weaved back and forth between my spurs he danced through the mud. He is such a prissy show pony. I don’t think he likes mud in his frogs! He doesn’t like the way it feels the next section we worked on gong through every bit of mud that we came across and we did. I had to use both reins and my spurs but he walked through them all.

With the mud nearly conquered I strated to learn about his hill work. He is weak and has to carry my fat butt up the darn thing so that’s hard for one. On top of that he doesn’t have that much practice balancing me while going up and down hills. At first he was slow going up and down and eventually he found his rhythm going up and was getting faster going down. After we went up our first hill we walked for a bit and Liz convinced we to trot him. This was me being bold. I asked and he went. At first we were slow and then we went to his power trot and I had to post. He had a fun time in the lead although he was a little nervous. It was trotting up the hil that got him, it really took it out of him. Ohh but it is so good for his hindquarters!

Then Liz decided we could walk my cursed trail. I tend to fall off on this trail every time. So I was completely ready for a deer or something stupid to scared him and un mount me but nothing happened. We walked into the main field where Liz and I watched a chip monk. I never really knew what they sounded like, I always though ti was a bird. We were laughing really hard at this chip monk. Every time he chirped he would hop. It was like the action took so much out of him that his whole body had to get in on it. At the end it make a serious of noised and instead of jumping it actually spun in a quick circle we busted up laughing at that!

Wynter tends to get scared of things on his right side. I’m not sure why he is mister brave when its on his left but going right he has to arch away from. On the right leaving the clearing was a piece of wood that people used as a mounting block. It really freaked him out for some reason so I made him face his fears and stand by it. He wasn’t to keen on the idea but he was ok with it. So we continue walking and pass an old shed which me barely bats and eyes at and I let Liz pass me up. Arlo starts going left and Wynter decided to go right with our without Arlo. Arlo is moseying along when he realizes that he is alone. Wynter is just content as can be going right. I now know that we would be ok to trail ride along with. He just doesn’t care about other horses. He has great spacing he keeps about a half a horse length when behind another horse. Arlo decided to cut through the thick brush to get to Wynter because he is a chicken! We were laughing and started to trot again for a bit.

I still think Wynter calls Arlo bait. He like really doesn’t care if he is food for the bear. I think he figures what ever pops out of the woods will eat Arlo first and he can watch. By the time its done it will be (he assumes) full and not eat him.

At the water tank we had a situation. He wanted nothing to do with it. It is a very scary with a water trough on a block of cement! We got close to it but he had to kick out as my spurs. I laughed at him he is so graceful isn’t not even a buck. He is so completely smooth. He got about a foot from the trough and I figured that was good enough. Arlo and him also made peace. I let them get nose to nose with out Wynter going stallion under me. He was very civil and he was really surprised Arlo was more than bait.

Off on the next trail we went a ways and I got enough courage to pull my feet out of the stirrups. Today was just full of bold thing! My feet not being in the stirrups was a big thing for me, please note I was wearing my helmet! Brain saver, will not ride him out on the trails until he gets more miles on his shows so to speak. He wasn’t so sure about this idea either. He eyeballed them as we walked, so I started swinging them around and he would tilt his head to look at them.

Overall he was doing super good he was walking next to Arlo with out a thought and going along great. He wasn’t slow and concerned this time around he was pretty bold Taking big steps keeping up and sometime over taking Arlo who has the biggest stride I have ever seen. He has a foot over step in all his gates.

We passed Arlo and started down a trail in the front which he really hasn’t done before. He was very very alert and went slower than usual. Then we hit a fallen tree, it was about knee high and it was at a slant across the trail. On the side we were on the bark was chipped off where horses had nicked it. So it was very light tan with the rest of the tree almost black. He didn’t want to go over it. He took a while to get enough courage to go near it and then he would sniff it. I let him take it a step at a time. He was surely taking his sweet time too! It took him two minuets! He went forward and back Arlo all the while rolling his eyes. Then Wynter bucked with both back legs and takes two big steps toward the log and steps over. Trust me I was ready to sail over the thing. I just wanted to go over it with out having to have Arlo go first and we did in a very civilized manner. I was very very proud. Arlo thought it was ridicules that I was petting him for bucking and going over a log. He was not enthused. I let Liz lead and took up the last position where Wyner was most comfortable.

Going down a hill I wasn’t paying attention. I had my crop under arm and both rein in my right hand using my legs to steer. As we went down he got a good horse length from Arlo as he is slow going down hill. He stops looking where he is going and veers off to the right. When he notices the drop off I went to pull him to the side instead he hopped down. This was the first time he ever jumped or did anything like that, so I was very unprepared! I ended up coming up and slamming into the western saddle. Very very uncomfortable! He was pretty graceful though.

Over all we had an awesome ride. He did a lot of new things and I love him to death. We are going to be taking out my BFF for the first time in like a year and I would like to take Wynter. I’m not sure he will be up for it though we had a pretty long and ride day.

Yesterday well, I guess it is a build up from the past three days. I have a friend who lives close and owns three Haflinger‘s. One being a mare. We were talking and she mentioned she was thinking about breeding her mare. I said jokingly that I knew of this really amazing silver stallion. Well, needles to say I needed up riding Marquisse over to her house ot look at her mare. We talked for about 2 or 3 hours. We talked a lot about breeding and the Haflinger breed in general.

Yesterday I told her that I would be at the barn and she could stop by to check him out. She really hasn’t seen him move. I had in the cross ties when she arrived and she looked him over real good. I was glad I went and looked at her mare and was able to see how they would cross. I must say that it will be a nice foal. She loved his legs and bone. We turned him out in the pen as the trainer was gone and let he busted around for awhile.

He was definitely showing three days of nothing. He busted around the pen and my friends loved his canter. She was oohing and ahhing over his canter. He zoomed around for a while and I had a hard time getting him to trot. Thus I through his saddle one and jumped n him. He was still very forward and ‘strong’. We had an ok ride but he was just quick and fast about everything. The good part was that she was pretty set on breeding her mare to Wynter. I’m very excited! Now we are just waiting to make sure she is breeding sound and then were waiting for spring!

So yeah I’m beat and my fingers hurt! I have a meeting tomorrow and I have to trail ride sometime during the day. So yup there it is in a nut shell. When I can get to it I will tell you about our lesson. It was very very funny we rode out a few kicks and bucks.