A week of plotting and planning

This week Rose and Sweetpea had their feet done. They were tranqued, but just lightly and quite well behaved about it.

I spent the week wrangling an extra tall horse trailer for Rose and organizing a task force and plan for Peace. I knew someone who had recently bought a 17.3 hand Belgian for her husband so I contacted her to see how she transported him. Graciously she has offered to haul Rose this weekend! After much schemeing, we've come up with a good plan with several back ups for getting Rose this weekend. The bad news is that it may be the last chance for a while. A combination of the weather and the lack of cooperation from the barn management means that at the least we need to suceed in getting her out of this pasture, if only to a pipe corral or catch pen where she can be worked with over the next couple of weeks. The best case of course will be if we can actually load and move her.

So wish us luck for the weekend! Hopefully all will go well and these girls can get on the road to forever homes.

Ohhh my aching bones!

Mk, almost up to date. Soooooo, last weekend we decided to move Peace over to my barn. I had high hopes because I was told that she had been haltered in that pasture several times before. I've done the whole walk the horse down thing before in a similarly sized pasture. The difference was that that pasture was mainly level and totally dry. They same could not be said about this one. It had level spots... It also had steep spots and deep muddy ones.

Lets just say that four hours into it I was remembering all those youtube videos where they chase horses around the pasture on ATVs. I think I get it now. As I limped up the hill for the bazillianth time I would have given, hmmm, imagination fails me. Well I would have given a lot for anything that would have meant I got to stop walking up and down that hill.

We penned her into a corner a number of times and erected construction fencing, as was my fear she pushed through it. It took another hour to get her back in our make shift pen. This time we cobbled together something a little sturdier with one pipe corral panel we managed to scrounge. This lack of suitable equipment was mainly caused by the lack of cooperation of the barn management. I won't go into the details, but needless to say things haven't been exactly made easy. Anyway she barreled through it once and fell down. This was probably a good thing as she developed a little more respect for the fencing. Another hour passed and we had her penned again. This time I had someone stationed at the spot where she had pushed through the fencing both times with a lunge whip ready to discourage her from a repeat performance.

I worked her for about 30 minutes in this make shift round pen. At that point it was clear that we wouldn't get her loaded that day. The sun way going down, the rain was coming in, and one of our group had to be somewhere. The good news is that she learned a lot. She learned not to turn her butt to me. By the end she was always turning to face me. She learned not to kick out at the whip. She learned whoa, and to stay whoa while I approached. I was able to stand right next to her without her moving. If we had had another hour we could have gotten her haltered but of course then she would have had to lead and load. All in all the exhausting day was very productive. The entire time she remained reasonably calm and calculating and was never aggressive on the contrary she is quite submissive. So at least we accomplished some goals and though we didn't get her haltered and loaded we made progress and it should be easier the next time. At least the “resistance is futile” lesson was learned.

Peace towards the end of her lesson in our make shift round pen.



So we decided to switch horses midstream and take Rose to my barn. I must have been really tired. We pulled up to the barn, I led Rose out and then had to laugh. There is no way that big girl will fit in my standard size trailer. Poor girl would have to ride with her head and neck down. So we took a couple of pictures of her and headed home horseless and limping.

Rose is a knockout!



Even better looking in person, the pics don't do her justice

OK so lemme see if I can catch things up. Two weeks ago I went out to meet the mares and take a look at the layout of the pasture and form a plan. I saw Peace first. Now I'm not a draft expert but she is gorgeous! Seems very typey and has that beautiful American Belgian coloring whith the four white socks and blaze. It was rainy and the pasture was a muddy mess but I slogged out to see what her personality was like.

I started by ignoring her and approaching the other horses who all seemed quite friendly. I gave out carrots and scratches and moved closer to her. She was alert to my presence but was not afraid at all. I got very close, scratching her buddy with her on the other side. Before I left I moved off and then came back in putting direct pressure on her to see how she would react. She backed away and licked her lips did the baby chew thing while watching me. All good signs! She doesn't seem to be afraid or aggressive and is in fact quite submissive.

Here she is in the mud that day.







I headed up to the barn to meet Rose and Sweetpea. My first impression of Rose was that she is stunning. A different type than Peace, but more my style. I'm primarily a Dressage and Eventing rider and I would love to see rose doing these things or out foxhunting! It would be truly impressive and I love her conformation! She has great hip and shoulder angles. I went into her stall and clipped a leadrope to her halter to check her out. She's a real sweety. Likes carrots and having her face scratched. She's a little flinchy when touched but I think she just needs time. She definitely is developing a human bond.

Sweetpea is a cutie. She's 10 months old and at a bit of an akward stage. She's a bay but I wonder if she may grey? It's hard to tell with that baby winter coat and we aren't sure who her sire is. We do know the PMU ranch they came from so may be able to find out.

And so it begins.

I'll start by apologizing for any lack of skill in my writing style. It's been, well um a while, since I've attempted to write anything other than emails. A worthy cause has come along to encourage me back into it so here I go.

I'll be honest up front. This is a shameless grab for attention with the intent of getting these horses a good hopefully forever home. It all started on Facebook. All kinds of old friends came crawling out of the woodwork. I don't like to toot my own horn (OK, maybe I do) but man, I always made friends with the coolest people!

Apparently one of these is now a commercial cargo pilot. She flew a couple of loads of Belgians to the meat market in Asia and was so moved that when she had the chance she rescued two of the mares. As is unfortunately all to common she didn't realize the magnitude of what she was getting into. She thought that they would be at least halter broke and for one of the mares it wasn't the case. Anyway, long story short, a year and a bunch of money later and both mares are really no further along then when she got them. One mare is completely unhandled, barring being chased down and haltered a couple of times. In hindsight she should never have been put in the pasture. Both mares were pregnant and Peace, the unhandled one lost her foal. She foaled in the pasture and they were unable to help her quickly enough when she ran in to difficulties.

So this is where I come into the story. The goal is to get the mares and the yearling filly re homed. I've always been interested in rescue. Mainly I'd thought about thoroughbred rescue and always wished I had the funds and time to rescue, train, and re home them. That's my Super Lotto dream. It seemed like serendipity. Finally a change to give. I explained my worry, that two well fed Belgian mares that are untrained are a kill buyers wet dream. I told her that if she gives them to someone who can't handle the responsibility or doesn't have the experience to turn them into good citizens. The may start the slide down the slippery slope to auction and even though selling to kill is illegal in California, all the out of state trailers at the low end auctions show that it is still rampant. So I volunteered.

I have time for the next few month so here we go. Departing on a journey into training the really big mares. Hopefully this hasn't been to unclear. I'll write more soon and get things up to the present. There have been a few trips and trainings to catch up on and I intend this to keep track of their progress.

(this feels so weird, like talking to myself in public)

Here are the pics that there rescuer sent me from last year.

Peace

And Rose and Sweetpea