Perfect Ponies

Sev at the auction.

The ponies have been great this past week, well I guess for the most part.  We had a bit of trouble with Socks but I'm getting to that.  On Friday we went out early to catch them because my brother was supposed to be coming down to do their feet.  (He's a farrier student at the best farrier school in Canada and he's been there long enough that they can already trim feet.  I'm pretty excited, I'm never going to have to pay for a farrier as long as he's around!)  We brought Artemis up first and she was fine at first because Zanza was in the barn.  Well as soon as M took Zanza into the arena, my darling little pony began throwing a temper tantrum.  So we threw a little bit of hay in a stall and put her in it.  She was not impressed.  However, she's much less likely to injure herself inside a stall than outside of it, where she could possibly scratch herself on the handle.

She'd stare at us and then very dramatically and almost in slow motion (I swear I'm not making this up!)  she'd throw her body against the stall wall and then slide down the wall, still throwing herself against it.  It honestly looked like she was looking for a weak spot in it.  When that wouldn't work she'd walk in circles, squeal her displeasure, pause to grab a bite of hay and take a drink and then repeat the process. 

My mom kept an eye on her while I grabbed Socks, and then we switched so we could go grab Jimmy.  Artemis finally calmed down.  She just stood in the middle of the stall watching.  We brought Socks and Jimmy into the arena once M finished lunging Zanza, and we weren't sure how she was gong to react, but she was silent.  She was perfect.  After a while I grabbed her and brought her into the arena.  We were doing groundwork with Jimmy so Socks was just free, wandering around.  I had to keep a hold of Artemis because even though they've been seperated for a few months, she was still trying to nurse and Socks was not at all happy with it.  She'd bite her and kick at her.  However, if I held her lead rope she didn't try anything. 

We were working on her backing up and respecting personal space.  We were also working on getting her to stand beside the mounting block.  I am obviously a few years away from getting on her, but we figure it can't her to get her used to standing beside it now.  Jimmy is four and he has issues with it.

Sadie's adoption picture off of the rescue site.

By the time my brother and sister finally got to the stable, a few other people had already showed up.  There was Big Charlie and her two owners, Charleston and his owner, and Sue and her owner and a farrier.  Our barn isn't very long, there are only five stalls to tie up to and we had three horses to bring in.  We ended up leaving Socks in the arena because nobody was riding yet and bringing Jimmy and Artemis out.  Charleston's owner, J, loves Artemis and Big Charlie's two owners had never seen her before so my spoiled little pony got a lot of attention which she basked in. 

Well my brother finally got there and it turns out that the farrier working on Sue is one of his instructors up at his school.  So he got kind of an impromptu lesson.  I'm a bad sister and had to interrupt it after twenty minutes because we had been there for close to four hours already, he had three horses to do and poor Artemis was falling asleep.  The only thing that was keeping her standing was the fact that she was tied. 

Alex started with Socks and let's just say...my normally awesome horse was insanely cranky and just not into it that night.  At all.  The other horses had been brought inside to the stalls already and they had heard the feed truck go.  They were all tired and just wanted to go out.  Alex went to pick up her back left and she lifted it and started kicking out.  She wasn't actually kicking him, her hoof would touch her but she still wasn't really kicking.  It was more like she was going, "I could kick you if I wanted to and I want you to know that."  Still, she got in trouble for that.  In the end we decided to try again Sunday because they were all too cranky. 

Fonda at just a few days old.

Sunday Alex and I went out.  The horses were all pefect.  I couldn't have asked for them to be better.  Artemis was so great with her feet, we've been working on it alot lately.  She was even alone in the barn but she didn't act up at all.  When it was Jimmy's turn, he was absolutly perfect.  The last few times he's had his feet done he was anything but, but Alex figured out to hold his leg lower and Jimmy was happy.  Socks was over her crankiness so she stood quietly.  I was proud of all three of them that night.

Off-Topic.  I'm watching the NFR right now, mostly just for the Barrel Racing.  Carlee Pierce just broke the arena record with a time of 13.46, the previous record was 13.49 and in Barrel Racing, that is a pretty big difference.  I'm always going to a bigger fan of the Calgary Stampede (I absolutly love going to it!) but their runs tonight were pretty amazing!