Yay for training.

[MokeyBird]

My baby girl has started her "official" training with my dad. Yay!! She can almost guide up and down the hallway of our barn without much trouble. I can't wait until she knows enough for me to be able to take over the lines. I've never long lined in the barn and I refuse to learn on a baby. If I could bring my broodmare in, I couold practice my long lining skills in the barn. Psh, that'll never happen.

Here are a few tips (courtesy of my dad) for starting babies:

1. Put vaselline and salt on the bit. This will make the bit a treat for the horse and will make it so much easier to bridle him. My dad likes to impress customers by holding the "doctored" bridle up and having the colt take the bit in his mouth by himself.

2. Bridle the colt over the halter and run the lines through the bit to the halter. That way, if and when the colt gets away from you or tangles himself up in the lines he is not going to ruin his mouth.

3. If you use a backband, don't tighten the cinch like you would a saddle. Keep it fairly loose the first couple of times and use a rope/ string for a breast strap to keep the band from slipping back around his flanks.

4. For our barn it is important to keep these first sessions rather short. They are babies. There is no need to punish them by working them a long time. Keep your expectations low. Get what you want and put him up. A little bit of guiding back and forth is good enough for the first couple times.

I just thought I would share a little on how we start our colts and express my excitement over having a two-year-old-show-prospect for next year. Have a nice day, everyone.

[MokeyBird]

I just thought I'd post on my last thread instead of starting a new one to log my filly's progress. She is now at that age when I stop working with the young ones, but I keep track of the little lady's progress and that of my other babies. This will be long so prepare yourself.

My dad says she is gettin prettier every day and it is true. She has a gorgeous eye (not as pretty as our grey colt's eyes, but pretty none the less), and, thanks to me, she is no longer straight necked.

She had her first foot trimming last week and we found out that she was a little thrushy. She is getting over that nicely. She has, as my sister says, "a real horse hoof, not a baby foot."

She thinks really well for a youngster. I broke her to lead in two days after never laying a hand on her in the field. She was quick to get the whole guiding thing, and, although I neglected working with her legs, once she figured out what we wanted, she now picks up her feet for us.

She is the biggest baby I've ever worked with. She is as tall as my six year old broodmare. Her back comes up to my chin (I'm almost 17 hands at the top of my head). She, out of the three, is the only one big enough to think of being able to show as a two year old. I hope she will be able to be a harness horse, but my dad says every time I ask him, "she hasn't told him yet." She'll probably go into three gaited. She doesn't really look like she will become a five gaited horse. The other two colts do, though.

Dad says he is going to start putting the saddle on her, because she is big enough. I'm not sure if he has or not. I don't think so, though, he hasn't really had the time.

AS for the others, the grey colt is a sweet heart and predictable. When he doesn't want you to do something he will, of course, fidget, but when he gives in he will heave a great sigh and you can do whatever you want to him. The chestnut colt is going to have his "I'm a disrespectful stud colt" attitude adjusted here pretty soon. He has kicked my sister several times, puposefully. He aims for you. He has even cow-kicked my sister in the supposed "safe-zone".

The two soon-to-be weanlings are doing okay. The filly is a half sister to my aforementioned black mare. She is a very wierd shade of bay. Almost a liver chestnut bay. She is a princess. We had to bucket feed her when she was born because her mother didn't make any milk and it seems she hasn't forgiven us for not feeding her when she could finally nurse the mare. Being a jumper is not in her future, though. She tried to jump the fence and, naturally, got tangled up. She scraped almost all of the skin off of her right lower foreleg, so we had to lock her in the barn to doctor it. When she got tired of that, she took to kicking at people. She has never done that to me, however, and I can go up to her without any trouble. Not that I trust her. The colt I haven't been able to touch. Mother dear, Gena, was obsessively protective of him around people, and yet would let him run off with the other mares as if they were his mother. He has the ugliest head I have seen in a long time. I think I must be seeing him in the wrong stage. He is currently in that hidious patchy, baby shedding stage. I hope he gets prettier.

And finally, my h a c k n e y pony coming two year old filly. She is a sweet little thing, sort of (she is a h a c k n e y). I can put the halter on her out in the field, but that is it. Since she is out there I can't work with her, and we haven't had room or time for her in either barn, until now. All we have to do is herd her and her stinking mother into the barn and skin her off into a stall so I can get to work on her. She already picks up all four feet and I can lay across her back as I hug her (that is so easy with a pony). She is an odd color. She just looks like a normal bay until you get up on her. She is almost roan and has (like her black mother) white flanks and white on her withers. We have another roan h a c k n e y, too. It is weird.

Well, I think I have logged enough for the time being. Good night.