Bragging Rights

Today was the first day I was alone at work, well, I have been alone at work before, but this is the first day since everyone else left for the horse show. I cruised through my turn outs and lunges. I wanted to make sure I took my lunch before the halter trainer showed up and needed my assistance with the halter horses.



Chance at 5 months old.

I pretty much handle only the horses that the head trainer trains, which are all 3 years old and older. I don't do much with the yearlings at all. But since the other girl who works for us went to the horse show, I would be in charge of over 50 horses, including the yearlings (this does not include all the horses that are permanently in turn outs, we have over 100+ horses at our farm and I only handle the ones that are in the 3 barns.)



Chance at 5 months old.

I brought my first yearling out to lunge. I have seen the yearlings being lunged before and they always look like they are a little wild, so I figured I'd have my work cut out for me. The first one was a little hot. But she was manageable. The second one I thought would be good to lunge, but he ended up being a real brat. We had a tug-o-war match going on, he wanted to get away and I wanted him to listen to me and behave. I mean seriously, these yearlings get lunged for 15-25 minutes a day, 5 days a week! They are all halter babies, so they need to stay conditioned. I figured with all the lunging they get, they would know how. Apparently not. I guess I should have paid more attention to who was doing the lunging. Anyways, back to the colt. He tried switching directions and got the lunge line on the other side of his head. Once they do that, all control is lost. But I hung on for dear life and even though we ended up on the other side of the arena, I finally got him stopped and righted the lunge line. And here I thought he was going to be the good one! Once we switched directions when I wanted to, he actually did much better.



One of Chance's first lunging lessons.

My third yearling did much better. She wasn't out of control and she actually lunged in a pretty circle. Much better! There are many more yearlings that need to be lunged but I can't get to 50 horses in a day. So a few didn't get lunged. They will be first on my list tomorrow morning. We will see how that goes. I also have to say that the some of the yearlings (a couple of the new client horses) haven't had much handling. They are scared of everything and I can tell I am going to have my hands full the next couple days.



Chance lunging like a pro.

The reason I brought all this up is because I just have to brag about my OWN yearling, Chance. I have lunged her maybe 8 times and she lunges better then any of those yearlings at work who get lunged 5 days a week. I am lucky if I get Chance lunged once a week. She totally understands the concept, pays attention to my body language and listens to me. We don't play tug-o-war lunge line games. She goes out, does her job and we call it a day. I'm not saying that Chance is perfect by any means, oh all right, she is perfect! But I really think it makes a difference on who does the handling and training of the babies. We go through help so quickly at work and the babies aren't being handled consistently. I think that makes a big difference. When I handle Chance, I am pretty much the only one that does handle her and she knows what is to be expected of her. If I let my OH lunge her one day, I bet she would try to pull something over on him (I may have to experiment with that one day to see if my theory is correct!)

Anyways, I just had to write about how perfect I think my little Mustang Chance is, compared to the expensive Arabians at work! Have I said how much I love my Mustang lately?