Major Setback

The day started well enough... Dum dum dum

I went to the barn and turned Rose out in the round pen. She's such a sweetie. She is learning to be more respectful of my space and leads quietly. As soon as I let her go I heard a crash. Sweetpea had attempted to follow us and tried to jump the fence into the next paddock. She miscalculated and ended up stuck on the top rail, hind end hanging off the ground with her hips caught. It was obvious that there was no way she was going backwards into her pen, rather we would have to bring her hind end over. I got some help from the barn and we dragged a bale of hay behind her and then one in front. I picked up her front foot and got it onto the bale and she came scrambling over. The good news is that she is fine and I highly doubt she will ever try that again. She stayed very calm the whole time we extricated her. I led her around for ten minutes and then put her in a stall with the door shut and a alfalfa cube mash laced with bute.

Once things were calm again I headed up to the roundpen to work Rose. She loved her turnout time. I think it had been months since she had been out of the stall. She rolled in the sand over and over. She was a very good girl. I spent about 20 minutes teaching her whoa and to reverse by facing me never to turn her butt my way. We headed back to her stall where I had tied a piece of baling twine with a quick release tie (this big girl would take down the corral if decided to pull back). I clipped her to that and gave her her first grooming. Ever since I first saw her I had been lusting to get that ratty mane brushed out. I curried her brushed her and combed her mane. Today I will do her tail. She stood just fine and really seemed to enjoy it. She bent her head around a few times and sniffed up my back as I worked. I grabbed a rope and checked to see how she was about her feet. She was just fine about the fronts. She had no problem with me scratching up and down her hind legs and let me slip the lead rope around her fetlock. It was a real struggle to get her to lift them off the ground and I was not able to clean them. It will take more work but she didn't offer to kick at all so I'm very happy with how we did. She is a bit slow to move over when I ask and sometimes requires some poking. Once when I did that she swiped at her owner with her teeth (she was standing at her head at the time). It was just a threat and she didn't intend to make contact or she would have. Nevertheless it's not acceptable behavior and I immediately smacked her. She pulled back and popped the baling twine. I calmly got her, tied her back up and started grooming her again. The next time I asked her to step over she was WAY more responsive, so lesson learned.

We drove out to where Peace was confined in the catch pen. I went into the pen with her and started to work on getting close to her again. It was tricky because of the mud, the confined space, and the fact that the pen is square. I did my best to keep the pressure really low so that she would just walk. It started out really well and I had high hopes. We did whoa a few times and I approached and retreated several times with no problems. Then her particular pasture mate came galloping up. She seemes to be fine and didn't pay much attention even when he left again. I'm not quite sure what happened at that point. Maybe she was just to energetic from the confinement, but she started getting more frantic and even though I backed away and tried to mellow things out she tested the fencing one board gave and she ended up jumping/pushing through another spot and went galloping into the pasture. It was definitely something I had been concerned about. The catch pen was not sturdy nor in good repair and although we had reinforced it with pipe panels it couldn't hold her. I'm very sad. I think she will make a great horse if she can get a couple of weeks of work, but without the right facilities I can't do it. It's a real shame. She's young, healthy, beatiful, and had a really tractable temperament. So I'm back to the drawing board with her. I'll call some cowboy trainers I know and see if anyone has any ideas. What she needs is to spend a week or two in a bullpen getting halter broke but I'm not sure how to accomplish that. For the next month she will be on hold while I regroup and focus on Sweetpea and Rose. In fact I have someone coming to see Sweetpea tomorrow!

I'm about to head out to the barn. Hopefully today will be less eventfull!