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