Red Letter Day for Baby

[Treasure Walk]

Sunday I took Baby to the neighbors indoor arena for her first ride away from home!!!
She was quite nervous at first, I just kept moving her feet and asking for her head down.
After a good liberty run in the arena ( which included chasing 4 barn cats) we settled down to some time under saddle.
Ground drove her for a few minutes and then Christie jumped aboard, well actually I had to give her a hand up as Baby is much taller than Alice. :p
Baby moved off with no problems, steered just fine and stopped when ask.
She is really good at stopping :D thats her favorite part.
When Christie was done I gave pony rides to two little girls who were standing around with their helments on waiting for their turn on their sisters horse.
Baby was great with the kids, she never made a mis-step and seemed to be extra careful. Never flinched when other horses were cantering around her.
All in all I was very proud of her. I think I am going to try it again tomorrow and hopefully I will ride her myself this time!!! :eek:

[AZ Desert Rat]

Is Baby your "singing" horse or a different one?

[vsolubo]

Good luck!

[Houdini]

That's great. Baby is a special horse. She chased cats? Our Mustang chases cats out of her stall and pasture. She has also chased dogs out of our pasture.
Baby is one smart horsey.
Hope you get to ride her. Let us know how your ride was.

[PaCe2WN]

Baby soudns like a wonderful horse!!! Let us know how your ride goes!!! :)

[Treasure Walk]

Thanks everyone :D

AZ Rat...yes Baby is the singing horse! She is multi-talented!

Afraid I didn't get to the arena today as I had a dental problem.
Had a tooth pulled and in the process a small piece of my lower jaw was broken :eek: Had to go back and spend 2 more hours in the CHAIR getting that fixed. Ouch!

[AZ Desert Rat]

Oh, dear - the dreaded dentist. Hope you get fixed up soon!

Did you get Baby's training squared away? I remember you said that you were having problems with a trainer like I did a couple of months ago. Sounds like she's coming along real nice now!

[Treasure Walk]

Oh...the "trainer" and I use the term loosely. I did send her to a trainer for pulling her cart. Didn't turn out well. I think the woman was intimidated by Babys size, for one, and also she seemed to want to use force. Baby was only there for 3 weeks and I brought her home. With a bad case of thrush I might add.
I have a very nice trainer now who comes to the house once a week and trains both of our drafts and us too. A world of difference in these 2 women.
Baby and Norma Jean both look forward to their Saturday lessons. In fact once I forgot to bring Baby in from the pasture for her lesson, she saw the trainers car pull up to the barn and came running as fast as her fat little body go, and stood at the gate whinnying for Diane!!!!
Sounds like you had a bad experience too, what happened? :(

[AZ Desert Rat]

The "Trainer" I sent my filly to (for about 3 weeks) lives only a couple of miles from us, but had no arena. He said I could come and watch by appointment only. He had a round pen only - which is fine, but there's only so much you can do in there, and then you need to get into an arena and/or ride some outside - just my opinion - but I think horses need a change of scenery so they can get used to different things. Anyway, the trainer had to go out of town after she'd been there 3 weeks with him, so he brought her back over for the 2 weeks he'd be out of town. Trying to make this long story short, I thought she was in terrible shape, lost a lot of weight, rope burns on all 4 ankles, a huge swelling on her left hind cannon bone, etc. He didn't tell me about any of these things, and I wouldn't have seen them till he brought her back in 60 days. She also didn't seem very happy. I think she was traumatized. I didn't let him pick her back up. He was mad at me. Too bad.

I used him because my shoer said he was good, and he was close. He was not cheap. I finally found a really nice stable (at the recommendation of my vet) 12 miles from my home. Very professional, excellent trainers, great facilities, caring barn owners - all just around the corner from me, and only $50 more per month than the 1st "trainer".

Anyhow, I just got her back from the 2nd "trainer's" place about 2-1/2 weeks ago. She's awesome. I can walk, jog, canter, back, sidepass, turn on the forehand/haunches, two track, ride out around the neighborhood, etc. I'm so excited and happy about the job they did with my horse. To me the biggest & best part was visiting her 3 days a week, and seeing her so happy both while being worked and just in her stall.

Glad you found someone you like as well. Some areas it's just hard to find good trainers, shoers, etc. If I lived up in Phoenix it probably wouldn't have been a problem. But we don't have the numbers of trainers, clinicians, etc that they do. :)