and I don’t mean that facetiously. Worked on a couple of people in the am, did a quick trip to town, then worked a few horses.
First up was Jr. Let him bounce and play in the pen. He just feels sooooo good. He is also pretty sure that he IS all that AND a bag of chips. I tell ya, what testosterone does to the male psyche. After he finished up playing he got to hang out on the hot walker.
Generally speaking I am not very enthused about having a stud horse around. I feel I’m a pretty harsh critic of horse flesh and I make an effort to not be barn blind. The world can always use another good (even fantastic) gelding, right? I already know that the yearling colts will be gelded – both of their mommas are just mares, with no show record.
Jr still has his testicles for quite a few reasons. For starters he has a strong sire and dam. He is a good color and well marked. (Just because I don’t care much for Palomino doesn’t mean other folks don’t just go ga-ga over it, and four perfect socks are pretty doggone classy.) In other words, he is a good looking, flashy colt. He has a good mind/good temperament and is very trainable. So far, when he does try to be an unmannerly idiot talking to anything that could be a girl, very simple corrections and more than anything re-directions fix the situation. He is not a HERDA carrier. In a nutshell, there are no marks against him. Once you geld one, you can’t put them back. However, he will have to prove that he can do the job. It is not absolutely certain that he will be a stallion to stand at stud. However, that door does remain open to him though.
Anyhow, once he was out of the pen I pulled out his momma. She’s 22 years old now. She still kicks up her heels and rips around the pen. I try not to let her over do it. Given her history as a cutting horse, I know she’s spent her fair share of time covering miles on a lunge rope or in a round pen. Just going in circles. To watch her play and fart and buck looks to me like she’s giving the hoof to all those hours spent just working off the fresh. She’s some stubborn old lady saying if I feel good then why shouldn’t I go run and play? All I can tell her is yes, but please look after yourself.
A few notes: first don’t pick on an old lady for her figure, or lack thereof. This girl has had her fair share of foals. Yes her tail is very short, thank Jr for that. Finally, yes part of her mane is rubbed out – that was her teaching her filly this year how to find the choicest bits of hay on the outside of the gate.
She’s a good mare. She’s sound. The last time she was shown she was 15 years old. That’s another reason Jr is not gelded. His sire retired sound from the cutting pen. I don’t know about you, but I have dealt with my share of unsoundness and injury in horses. Unfortunately, soundness is something that seems to have been lost in some parts of the gene pool. Knowing there is a sound sire and dam behind this colt, makes me want to give him a chance.
So look at the top picture of Karat and then look at the mug shot of Jr that sits to the upper left of the page. See the resemblance? Yeah, he’s a lot like her.
Speaking of Jr again, after his momma had her fun, he got to wear a saddle for the first time today. He was dorky about getting dressed. He’s itchy because he needs a bath, but it’s too cold. Every time I would bring the saddle up to him he would squirm around to try get scratched somewhere – anywhere would have been acceptable to him. After dumping the saddle on the ground once, by moving out from under it, it was successfully on him – cinched up and all. No explosions, no OMG what is that (!SNORT!), no eek what is that going around my belly. Once the saddle was in position, he didn’t care about the cinches or that he had this thing on his back. Truthfully, I don’t think I have ever sacked this colt out. But, he has been handled since he was born. Not imprinted, just handled.
Since he was handling it so well, I figured I’d let him move around in it. He walked nicely back to the round pen. As soon as I turned him loose he went all out bronc. After a while he settled down. I was not able to take a picture though, if I ignored him for any length of time he would roll.
So far he has been a very sweet tempered colt. He never gives me a dirty look. He always looks bright and happy, ears up looking around paying attention. Today, I got a few dirty looks. He’d tip his nose back to stirrup like he was trying to figure out why it was there. He’d keep trotting around and eyeball me. I know he was just thinking what is the deal with this thing, lady. At one point he stopped for a minute, but didn’t roll, and was reaching back checking everything out with his nose, mouth and teeth. Shortly after that he started pawing so I sent him forward again. He started to bronc a bit, then decided rearing might work, he went so high he about sat himself down. Which surprised me, as he always knows where his feet and body are in relation to the rest of the world. Then he settled back down and trotted around some more. Once he did that I thought we were good for today. More time packing a saddle around tomorrow for him. I’m thinking it will be a few days before he quits trying to figure out ways to get the saddle off.
I promise you more tomorrow about colt starting.
BTW – I’m adding a picture of the charcoal ham and beans to the post from Monday, if you are interested.
