Saturday, March 28, 2009

Take two

Seeqret and I were not meant to be. He had me too unnerved with his rearing and his breeder was generous enough to trade me him for a coming 4 year old mare, Sereele. I had met her when I first went up to Patti Bailey's to look at horses but decided she was just too young as I wanted to finally get riding and compete this year. but there was just something about her that I liked and couldn't get her out of my mind. part of the deal was that I also take another mare, Hailey, until Patti could get some more fencing in once the snow is gone up there. so about 3 weeks ago on daylight savings day I trailered Seeqret back and picked up Sereele and Hailey. I laughed to myself that I bought my counter part in a horse, grey hair, no chest, boney ass and nervous disposition. luckily she is a very sweet horse who I think is going to be my good friend. she was very nervous the first week or so here, didn't really want to eat and easily spooked. she quickly learned that I was the giver of tastey treats and began to trust me. I gave her a couple of weeks to settle in and just brushed her and handled her. last weekend we went for our first hand walk with chris and socks up to Mt Pisquah and into the woods. she was perfectly behaved, nervous but once in the woods relaxed. she met people and dogs, got some pats, went over water, stopped and nibbled at leaves. quite the change from "the other one". the next day we did the same thing but went in through Lisa Poulos's. chris and socks were in front and suddenly socks did a big leap to the left and made a weird "BRRUUK" sound. only it wasn't socks that made the noise, it was some horse eating attack chickens! sereele took the lead and braved the chickens and stream. what a good girl. she had her first spring shots thursday and on friday morning she had a bad cough, goopy eyes and runny nose. temp was 101.2. I figured she was a little lethargic so in the afternoon gave her some banamine, put on my hard hat and hopped on bareback. she sort of looked up at me like "whatever, you are weird" but was perfect. just walked her around the barn area for a minute. today she was feeling 100% fine again so chris and I saddled up, bridled up and headed out again. oh yeah, she took the bit in one second unlike the 10 minute wrestling match with "the other one". sereele was even more relaxed on the street so I got on after maple wood and rode her most of the way to Mt Pisguah. had to go first most of the way as chris forgot her "motivator" and socks thought that he would prefer to follow today. she rode in a hackamore for the first time and socks seemed to like it. I got off and lead into the woods for a bit, got back on, it is SO cool; she doesn't try to rear up and take off when I lift my foot toward the stirrup! I don't have to spin her in 20 circles until she will pay attention long enough for me to have 5 seconds to get on. she is so wonderful. I rode first for a while and second for a while. we passed some people that socks had to get a pat from before he would continue, his personality is really coming out, he is very cute. she was hesitant at a stream so socks led the way and she went right through. as we came back onto the street socks was suddenly dead lame. chris jumped off and picked up his foot hoping to find a stone but nothing. oh no, this can't be. she picked up his other front foot and he had broken his shoe in half and it was twisted across his frog! we got the twisted 1/2 off and he was walking fine so led them both home. it was a great day with my new best girl. long way to go, but looks like we might make it this time around. phew!