Actually written last week sorry:
A few days on and all’s well. Spirit has been progressing really well along with all the other horses. We have 8 in work at the moment and have been a bit amused as we seem to be doing a run on Cobs and Cobby looking horses. We have four here now, some clyde crosses and one lovely pure bred but all stocky, feathered boys and all so handsome 
. It certainly does make us look flash when we have such flash horses here.
Lovely SH mare breaker
The lovely Spirit is continuing to progress well. She’s on her forth ride tomorow and has been coming along well. Yesterday she went out for her first ride out of the roundyard with her owner on her other horse and ended up leading for most of the ride. She’s a very forward horse and Fred will never adjust a horses natural gait while they are being started, so as long as they don’t jig jog he will always allow a nice forward walk. It did look funny watching poor Max trying to keep up!
Beautiful Spirit
Fred had a minor issue with Spirit on her second ride actually, nothing out if the ordinary but still worth mentioning. Often horses will have a fantastic first ride and will then have a little test or question on the second ride when they feel a bit more confidenet with what’s going on. Spirit is a pretty honest horse, but on her second ride she decided to protest a bit about going forward past the shed in one direction. Fred gave her a bit of a tap with the whip (he will always use whip if the horse is not responding to leg as he never wants the horse to become dull to leg aids). Anyway, Spirit decided that wasn’t on and decided to put on a bit of a buck jump show in protest! Fred used the lateral mouth to shut her down but not before I caught one on camera. Once the bucking was stopped, Fred gave her another tap and off they went. The behaviour needed to be nipped in the bud, both the original stop and also the bucking afterwards, as we never want a horse thinking that behaviour is acceptable.
:)
As I said, we have some lovely horses in at the moment and all are coming along really well. The horse that I mentioned a while ago that went home as he had some mouth ulcers is back now after being given the all clear by the vet. It will be very interesting to see how he comes along but I’m sure he’ll be fine now. he had the perfect excuse to be resisting and Fred was convinced it was a soreness, not a behavioural issue.
LB, one of the Cobs and stunning!!
Tira
Sunday, 23rd May.
I should of gone ahead and posted what’s written above but we’ve had one of those weeks, plus my computer didn’t want to upload any photos to here for a bit so it got put in the too hard basket.
To update, Spirit has actually gone home now which shows how slack I am! She will be back in a month or so though to be finished off. Everything went fine, Fred and Spirit’s owner just felt she had been through so much, given her start, and that she would benefit from a bit of a break. Mentally, she’s learnt so much and we felt it would be better to give her a spell now and then bring her back to finish her leg yielding and have her owner ride her and be able to continue on with her riding without her needing a spell straight away. Her owner tells us that she’s having a lovely break and has been great to catch and rug and so on. So, all good and what a lovely horse.
Spirit coming home from a bush ride
Fred and I have had a crap week health wise this week. I had to have dental surgery early in the week under a general and it took me a few days to get back to normal so poor Fred and Kat had to do everything. Fred also had a nasty fall last weekend and has been carrying around a very sore thumb and back. The back is now better but he has his wrist and thumb in a plaster cast as he’s torn all the ligaments in it. He’s still working and riding fine, it just gives the thumb more support and stops him from catching it on things all the time. Even so, I don’t know if the cast will survive the month it’s meant to be on for .
We are absolutely full up with horses at the moment so we’ll both have to get over any soreness for this week! The lovely horse that had the mouth ulcers has come along really well and will be going home on Thursday. He was amazing; you would understand if he had lost a bit of confidence with what happened but he didn’t miss a beat and went on to break in beautifully. We also have a yearling here for the DDA (driving for the disabled) that we have donated a weeks work to. He’s a sweety but was another totally unhandled feral who used to like to push through fences if he didn’t want to be caught!
Archie, four months old now.
All the ‘Cobs’ went great and we still have the most stunning one of them all, LB, here although he’s just about ready to go home. If I owned him I could have sold him 50 times in the three weeks he’s been here. Everyone wants him, unfortunately for them including his lovely owner who can’t wait to get him back to Albany I’m sure .
Gorgeous LB
Tira went home after a very light start. He’s such a magnificent looking colt and I love telling people his background as a rescue. He’s so different to the skinny little foal that arrived here in the night a few years ago. Speaking of Clayton Station horses, we have the most amazing one that came yesterday. He is drop dead stunning, seriously one of the nicest horses I’ve ever seen and we do get some very nice ones here. I’ll post some photos of him this week. He’s here for some general work as he’s a bit green. Seems lovely though, shy but sweet.
We have a few new horses in for re mouthing, one who apparently had no steering at all but who also had the sharpest teeth we’ve seen in a while. Don’t think I would want to steer either with those in my mouth! He’s coming along very well which again shows what an impact teeth have on the horse and how important they are.
First professional trim
I remembered a few things I meant to say months and months ago and keep forgetting about. To all those that asked me, yes, Rob Cook from Horse Taxi did end up paying us our account in full plus another $1000 for our legal costs, thanks very much. What an absolute tosser. He was also evicted from his rental for non payment of rent. I see he’s back advertising his Horse Taxi business in the West Aus. Wonder how much tax he pays………
Also, our lovely client and friend won her court case about her very dangerous horse that was totally misrepresented at sale. Fred was the star witness at the trial and the judge commented on the great job he did which was nice. It was me that encouraged her to pursue the seller all those years ago and it took alot out of her to go for it, both financially and mentally. I’m so glad she won although I never had any doubt she would. No more of this buyer beware crap, sellers! Good on you Tanya.
Fred and seeded all the paddocks today. Lovely rain at last and it’s all turning green. I’m enjoying watching the ground turn green again, especially as it’s our first winter here.
