Gussie's turn

After our lovely ride ponying Mesa and Ice to the river, the next ride was to Canyon Arena to do a schooling ride on Gussie, and we took Ice for some schooling too. 

Gussie's lope is pretty good now, she is bang on with her leads pretty much every time. She still needs work on maintaining softness in the bridle, so Shayla worked on that and then moved on to helping her be more correct in her spins. 

She tends to do a partial spin and then her hind end kicks out. It's a work in progress at the moment, after that session Shayla did some research on things to help and came up with some videos by Larry Trochu that we will work on today. 

Gussie had lots to think about!

After that workout our next ride was a lovely trail ride up on the airport trails; I wanted to get up to the top for the view, it's been a couple years since I've been up there. We did a little bushwacking at first and found a neat spot to get a view of the east side of the valley- the lovely Skimmerhorns!

That is such a cool little dog, she is a good trail riding companion.

Let's go thataway next!

We eventually found our way up to the top to take in the view to the west.....

That is the Kootenay River which flows north from Idaho into B.C. I think we need to find some trails to ride over on the west side of this valley! There are lots of logging roads and back country roads over there but not sure about trails. Need to find a local who knows.

Looks like Gussie was enjoying the view!

Sassy did really well, she sure is turning into a good trail horse, just goes wherever she is asked without fuss. Not bad for a 4 year old who was intensively trained for the cutting horse futurities less than a year ago and had never seen mountain trails before this summer. I'm really looking forward to her Beamer baby!

Gussie was slated for a schooling session yesterday, but after riding her for a few minutes it was clear that something wasn't quite right, she was very uncomfortable especially going to the right and just was all antsy and unhappy. So that turned into a body work session instead. Her poll was very sore and I figure she had a headache, so Shayla worked on her (she is multi talented!) and got a lot of releases. Also used some essential oils on her (Aroma Siez and Copaiba) which it was plain she really appreciated. By the end of the session she was all relaxed and soft eyed. So hopefully today's schooling session will go a little better!

Riding day 67 & 68

More Mesa

I'm way behind on my Mesa posts!
We have been working her every day during the week and giving her the weekend off. She does really well with saddling and longeing now, the stirrup flopping is old hat to her now and her turns and stops are coming along nicely.
We ponied her to the river the other day. She investigated the water for a bit, and did pretty good leading across.

On the way back she dunked her head into the water and came up blowing spray out her nose!

She is a pretty cool little horse. I officially put her up for sale the other day. She is going to make someone a pretty nice mount and I sure hope she gets shown.

Starting to hint of what she is going to look like all grown up! Considering that she is just a long yearling, she is doing very well with everything we are asking of her. We keep the sessions short and stop on a good note.
Today we turned her loose and free longed her, encouraging the lope and rollbacks. She really has no issues at all with the saddle now.

We are pretty much at the stage where she needs to get out of the round pen and do stuff so we took her out in the bottom pasture (if you can call rocks and weeds pasture!!!) where there is a little maze and a log  for her to focus on.

She did well, but kind of got in a hurry going over the log so Shayla had her slow down and pay attention instead of just getting ramped up.

Her next session ponying will be saddled up. We are just about at the point where she will only need a few  sessions a month to keep her tuned up and then start up again in the spring with things like ground driving. Over the winter I can pony her and sack her out a bit.

I'll do another post on Gussie next!

Things that go bump

Yesterday's schooling lesson- Saddled up and longeing.
Actually, a bit of sacking out too.

The longeing itself went well, Mesa stayed out on the circle instead of crowding, and went both ways nicely.
Then Shayla tried something new...

Once we knew that she had a big reaction to that of course we did it 3 more times so that she could figure it out- and also made sure to keep her moving after her reaction so that she didn't connect bucking with stopping work. And did it both sides, of course.

All in all a good day. I always expect babies to have a big reaction sooner or later, and it's good to find the things that push their buttons and help them to work through it.

Oh Mesa....

Training the babies is sometimes like a dance; 1 step forward, 2 steps back, 2 steps forward, one step back etc.





After the day before's good session with the rope and saddle, Mesa displayed a bit of 'tude. She just did not want to cooperate!


The idea was to start with the rope work and move on to saddling, but she got pissy about the rope - not bucking, just trying to pull away, so that earned her a session free longeing until she decided to be agreeable.             
It took a while before she softened up and went in for the join up.

From there, she was worked on the long line. Her issue was wanting to drop her shoulder into the circle and crowd Shayla, (which actually is where the day's lesson started, as I was doing that at the start and she was crowding me so Shayla used that as the foundation for what she needed to work on for that day) so she used the stick ( would be handy to have a flag for this) as an incentive to keep her distance.

After getting this down pat, she was in a better frame of mind, so we put the saddle on  and had her carry it back to the barn.

The next day we started saddled and cinched up in the barn (her new normal), and did the circle /yield the hip work

She was much more agreeable, must have thought a lot about what she learned the day before.

It was a good session, so we kept it short.

Hopefully she will have got that out of her system and go back to being a sweetheart to work with!

That afternoon Shayla and I took a little ride to my favourite little spot by the road just to get some saddle time in and Goose wanted up. It's a bit of a reach getting ahold of her scruff from Gussie's back!  Gus was cool about having a dog up there, I guess Thumper has her trained for having critters on her back.

Riding day 66

Awesome day for the youngsters

Our morning routine is jelling. After feeding we work the youngsters, Mesa got worked first today.
First thing was have her pack the saddle, uncinched, to the round pen , which meant down the hill, squeeze between the fence and the trailer that is parked in the lane, past daddy Beamer's pen and on to the round pen. We started with rope work again, that is, Shayla did while I videoed.

As you can see we got a little more thorough, moving the rope to 3 different positions including flanking her. I guess she will never make it as a rodeo bucking horse! What a good li'l filly.

Since that went so well we moved on to saddling her. We just threw the saddle on and cinched it up, including the back cinch. Snug enough to keep it in place if she did get to bucking and not so tight as to constrict her breathing or worry her. The back cinch was done up snug against her belly. 

The aim was to make it a good experience, keep her happy and that's pretty much how it went.

She has been wearing that saddle every day at feeding time for a couple of weeks now, so it is familiar to her. And all the sacking out I did last fall and winter paid off. 

She did get a little looky on the right side, trying to inspect that thing attached to her. But pretty much the whole session was relaxed and on a loose leadline.

Love the way her forelock hairs look like an upside down heart 

After we were done we uncinched her and had her carry the saddle back up to the hill to the barn. 

Then it was time to do something with Ice, and Shayla decided that she would saddle her up and pony her from Rose and we would introduce her to the river. This would be her first real trail ride saddled up.

Once again, things went really well.

She did super, the only thing that surprised her was when she was led into the river, she jumped a couple of strides and then went across like an ole broke horse.

She took her back across a deeper part that was up to her stirrups and she was very good. What a cool li'l 2 yr old!

On the way back we went the route that took us through the big cement barriers that Gussie had her little wreck at. She did get amped up and worried, so I got off and led her slowly through and then used the blocks to climb up on to get back in the saddle, trying to make it all a good experience for the silly red mare.

There is a video of Ice's day, but since Shayla said she is going to fire up her blog again I'll leave it for her to show, and I'll post a link to it once she has it up.

All in all, a pretty rewarding day! 

Riding day 65

Ridin' and round pennin'

Kinda happy to have my riding partner back in town!
Yesterday we hauled Gussie and Rose up to Canyon Arena for a refresher, both mares were in need of it.

Rose is getting legged up for her winter in California, and showing.
Gussie needed some reminders- she has a diva attitude going on so she had to protest a bit but she did pretty good too.

She sure looks good under saddle! That's a reining saddle we are trying out on her, I'm having a lot of issues trying to find the perfect saddle /pad combination for her.
 This morning it was Mesa's turn. Every day when I take her into the barn to eat her ration, I set the pad and saddle on her, no cinch. Today, after eating I had her carry the saddle to the round pen. I want to soon be able to pony her saddled up so she needed to first learn about being cinched. Just out of curiosity, and because she is so calm about wearing the saddle, we tried pretend cinching and leading her; Shayla held the latigo so that she could feel the cinch but it wasn't done up, while I led her, but she jumped a bit and the saddle came off. Sure enough, she needed rope work.
So, rope work she got!

She did pretty good! Another day of that and we will try the saddle again.  I got her to pack the saddle back to the barn.

Ice was next up. She is a 2 yr. old and is still going through basic training. Shayla worked her free longeing  for a bit and then she rode while I had her on the longe line so that she could have her first time being ridden at a trot under saddle. It went well!

She's a pretty cool li'l horse. Very good minded and easy to get along with. She is going to be fun! We have plans to pony her and Mesa tomorrow, using Rose and Gussie. Let them get out and explore the trails here- speaking of which, we took Gussie and Sassy along the trails and across the river and up the steep trail to the hayfields, with the idea of checking saddle fit on Sassy. The saddle that's on Gussie in the photo above and on Ice in the video is getting tried out on all the mares to see who it fits best.

It was a pretty nice day for riding. The river is still low and crossing was easy...... except for Goose who had to fight the current!

The hill is pretty steep, but so nice for the view.

Sassy is starting to get her baby belly, and she hasn't been worked much lately  so this was a bit of a challenge for her, but she has a lot of heart and just chugs along.

The view at the top was lovely too. Made me wish that we could just keep riding up there , but we don't have permission to cross the hayfields, so we headed back down.

All in all it was a good day, about 4 hours spent doing horse stuff (grin). More tomorrow!

Riding day 63 & 64

New girl in town

Meet MP Dirty Dinero, aka Ice

This is Shayla's 2 yr old.She will be wintering here. She is a daughter of Shery Cervi's great stallion, Dinero. 

She is Sassy's friend, and eventually she will be integrated into the mare herd for the winter.

She's a pocket pony! Very friendly and curious. 

We are working to put some weight on her as she lost a bit over the summer. She just turned 2 and has lots of growing to do! I love her build.

The dog 'n' pony show

Mesa and Tay have a game going on. Tay loves that she can get a rise out of Mesa, as the other horses ignore her, and Mesa loves trying to chase Tay out of the pen.
Here is the story in pictures.

The game is afoot!

Tay turns to circle around....

Mesa goes after her....

C'mon dog. Ima gonna get you!

Na na can't catch me!

Dang, dog! You're quick!

Pause to catch her breath....

and Tay goes in for the fake to the tail...

But Mesa is the one who calls the shots. Game's up dog, it's chow time!

Saddle 'em up

Well... partially anyway.
Today is a no riding day as I had to take Merle to Bonner's vet to get his teeth done, which means dropping him off in the morning and picking him up in the afternoon. So.. instead, I played with Mesa.

She gets her ration in the barn, and I figured what better time to set a blanket on her back.
She pretty much said, ho hum....
So I put my little saddle on her back.

She still said, ho hum. Eating was more important apparently. (She isn't tied, and the saddle isn't cinched.)

The next step will be round pen work. Not with the saddle right away, but we will work up to it.
Fun!

Making progress

For all the Beamer fans out there, he is quite recovered from his bout of colic and is back to normal. Thank goodness!
He has something to say:

Oh- hai!  I felt you all prayin' for me....

I was reeeeally sick!

Worst bellyache in the world! Thought I was gonna die!

So thank you all for prayin' and sending good vibes and love! I'm alllll better now!

Ponying Mesa is going really well. I took her out again yesterday, this time down the trail west of the pond and up onto the dyke and then back around the pond. There was one point when Gussie and I skirted a dead branch, but Mesa walked right into it and it broke off and got caught up in her lead rope but she was pretty cool about it, just kind of stopped and looked frustrated that it was in her way!

She is a good minded little horse, it's fun working with her. She steps out nicely and is curious about everything; according to Richard Shrake that's a sign of an intelligent horse.

When we got back to the barn, we had to check out the progress on the hay shed, which is basically an overhang off the side of the barn. The four cement pilings are in and here the guys had just installed the ledger board for the roof. Tomorrow Ted will be welding the steel post uprights to their base plates, ready to install on the cement pilings, and then the roof structure can commence. I should be able to put 16 big square bales in there, which means that some will have to be stored outside, but those ones I will use up first.

So progress is happening, both with the horses and the barn.

My girls 💗

Riding day 62

That "oh no! " moment

 This is something every horse owner dreads to see. There is lying down, and then there is this kind of lying down:

The guys are working on building the hay shelter lean to off the side of the barn, so I went down to see if they needed any help or errands run. I saw that Beamer was lying down, now this is not normal for him so I went to check him out.

Not good.

He was kicking at his belly and it wasn't because of flies. He wasn't sweating but he did have rapid breathing. He was also rolling.
He was colicing. I ran to the house and got my Digize Young Living oil; it's for any kind of tummy trouble and is very effective.
Fortunately for me Shayla had a syringe of oral dose banamine here, and consulting with her, I gave Beamer 10 cc. I got him up and walking, took him to a flat area to make it easier on him. We walked for several minutes and he went down, that's when I put the DiGize on his belly- and lots of it. That's when I thought I was going to lose him; he was lying there twitching with the dullest look in his eyes. I sent  Ted out to get some mineral oil as I didn't have any on hand, and we managed to get about 5 syringe fulls down him.  I managed to get him walking again while Ted was gone, and the Digize and banamine must have kicked in because he didn't go down again after that. I walked him, slowly, until he brightened up a bit. Once he started passing gas and trying to eat, I put him back in his pen and hung out with him for a few hours, watching him and waiting for him to poop. About 5 hours later, he finally did, and then laid down on his bed of straw and rested- the real kind of rest, poor guy was exhausted. I watched to make sure he was ok and then headed to bed.
I was worried that he may have twisted a gut while he was rolling, that is always my biggest fear as I have lost a couple of horses to that complication.
Today he is a bit subdued, but pretty much back to normal.

But he looks like he aged overnight. 😭 Hopefully he will feel better in a couple of days and get his bright sweet look back.
I can't figure out why this happened, he has had no change in diet or environment. I checked his poo for sand, and there was none. It's a mystery to me.
I hope this never happens again.....