The New Boy
Yesterday, I drove down to the Meadow Haven Horse Rescue, and picked out a horse to rehabilitate. He is a 6 year old with lots of fear issues. Marla and Kay were amazing, caring for over 170 horses, and knowing every single one of them by name and history.
We have not named him yet. He had been broken to ride by a group of charros on the south side of San Antonio. Their horse-breaking methods are quite severe, and so this boy is scared of people, particularly men. After looking at dozens of potential horses needing ground work, I chose this one because he was the only one to look me right in the eye with a look that said, “take me”. He proved he was ready to go when he loaded in the trailer without hesitation.
My goal is to have him able to do the ground work from Clinton Anderson’s method through the intermediate level with a saddle on, so that he will be ready to be gentle broke by the gals at Meadow Haven.
Frank
Update (4/5/16): Last night we did round-penning for an hour. He became fairly consistent turning in towards me, and would draw towards me with lots of gentle coaxing. He was not up to following me with just the first lesson. With the desensitizing to the lead rope, he would kick strongly with his back feet, but soon accepted the rope around his back legs. He was very responsive to pressure on the poll to lower his head for the halter. Picking up his feet was unique. He had a different strategy for each foot: Left front, no problem. Left rear, kicked aggressively. Right front, he would stiffen his leg and not bend his knee. Once I had his knee bent, then no problem. Right rear, he would swing back and forth, but not kick. We worked about 15 minutes on holding his feet. In the morning, I let him graze on grass for awhile, then tied him and picked up his feet again. This time, no kicking, but he was still tense in the rear. His right front leg was still stiff at first, but he let me clean all 4 feet with the hoof pick – a real improvement over last night!