Dooz News: First Rides!

Happy Monday, and welcome to an absolute marathon post. Nearly 30 pics, plus a couple videos... But you all already knew it would be like that. Obvi the first weekend with a new horse was always going to be eventful. 

new red mare friends!

Going to condense a bunch of different milestones (but not quite all of them) into one mega photo post, but not too many words (< 2,000, I promise!), just for the sake of staying as close to 'real-time' as is possible in blogland. 

so far very happy in each other's company, but not particularly sad when one or the other leaves

Mondeuse is settling into farm life exceedingly well. She and Stella have become fast friends -- legitimately have not seen a single flickered ear, nor heard even the tiniest squeal or squeak. 

introductions were nbd

Each one will whinny (once) when the other leaves the paddock, but neither have returned the call when they're the ones leaving. The left behind mare, notably, regrets the loss of her friend, but doesn't deign to get frantic or frazzled about it. Excellent!

crossties update: Dooz is super happy in a proper 3-walled bay. cool cool, we can accommodate! 

Dooz is doing well inside the barn too. She is more similar to the TBs I got going in college in that she seems more comfortable in a 3-walled grooming bay vs an open aisle. Charlie was maybe the outlier there. Whatever the case, I wanted a happy secure mare this weekend for all the things, so we put here where she wanted to be!

first time walkies all the way up the driveway to the indoor!

Bc.... All the things!! First up, more and farther hand walkies!! On Saturday morning we made it all the way up to the indoor, an important first step imo. 

handled it well, even with weird light / dark transitions with all the open doors

She was a little amped up for our laps around the ring, but not necessarily by anything around her. Just the... newness of it all, and maybe the uncertainty of what it meant.

obligatory mirror selfie

Notably, the more she relaxes, the more interested and interactive she gets with her environment --- looking deeper into the corners, exploring the mirrors (lol), sniffing poles on the ground. And even when she's amped, she's still easy to handle -- like when I had to lead her around while picking up her stress poos. 

ok we'll talk tack later bc this post is already long enough. but there is workable tack!

So. Explorations accomplished, we were ready for milestones number 2 and 3: trying on tack, and attempting our first sit! We'll talk tack later bc I imagine that'll be an evolving situation anyway, so for now let's talk about the sitting omg!

biggest mission = accomplished!!!!

First off: we did it, yay! But y'all want more detail than that, obvi. So the slightly longer story is... Mondeuse came out of the paddock for this session actually the most amped up she's been since she arrived at the farm. I suspect she realized there was a breeding stallion nearby, or something. Idk, she was already stressy and nervous and sweaty before I even got her into the barn. 

"woot woot, i'm on a horse!" - emma
also, don't judge my style here haha, it's a borrowed saddle + 7 yrs since i restarted a horse.... 

So our walk up to the indoor was less easy than it had been earlier in the morning. And hand walking around the indoor was similarly a bit more escalated. But still... pretty definitively obedient. Like, if you can forgive not being able to really stand still, and wanting to kinda drag me around... She didn't put a foot out of line.

extra rope was bc we started the ride leashed (for safety), but then my ground person handed the rope off to me rather than stopping to futz around with getting the rope halter off

So we decided to proceed with the plan. I opted to bring the horse up with the rope halter over the bridle, both to avoid yanking on the bit and to give us a "hail Mary" cord for my ground person Katie in case things went sideways. But the mare was actually surprisingly perfect at the mounting block, go figure.

video of first sit!!

The ride itself was just walkies. We started out with Katie leading us around in both directions, which was fine. Katie then moved progressively farther away from us (while still holding the line), before I gathered up the slack myself and we were officially untethered! 

first bath was quite welcome after being in the indoor furnace

I actually think Mondeuse settled more at this point, bc maybe she realized she wasn't really "going anywhere," but that we were just gonna do more circles. I walked around long enough to test out the steering, test out how everything felt, etc. Get a couple moments of releasing her neck etc. Then opted to call it a day there, rather than get greedy and go for trot. 

kitted out with hand-me-down fly gear bc #SensitiveRedMare

Biggest win imo is that the mare, even when dripping with sweat ('twas quite hot) and extremely tense, was still shockingly soft and loose over her back, and using her whole stride. At no point did she get choppy and short (well, as long as you ignore her neck lol). My job will be to preserve that soft loose back and overtrack even as we begin to pull all the pieces together.

well done, lady, it was a big day for you!

Second biggest win was how her stress and tension melted away as we got back to the barn and did all the nice after-ride stuff, including bathing etc. 

intermission michael to transition us from saturday to sunday

Basically, before I can really teach her anything about riding, we'll need to disassociate it from her experiences racing. Easy routine and consistent practice will be key there!

same horse, new day. still hot tho

Which, naturally, takes us into Sunday! Her attitude coming out of the paddock on this day further reinforced that something had just upset her a little bit the prior day (again, maybe the shetland stallion?), bc she was suuuuuuuper relaxed this morning. 

cool as a cucumber

We got in a really solid grooming session on the funk and scabs on her hind legs, which I've so far been treating with the schmoo we used for Charlie's fence injury. It's good for wounds AND for funk, so basically perfect. Plus Doozy likes the fuss -- esp tail scritches! 

any other desk jockeys out there who always feel like you need to uncurl the shoulders to sit properly? 

Then, ya know. Back to the races! I still walked the horse up to the indoor with the rope halter over her bridle, again to avoid having to tug on the bit. But after a couple laps hand walking, we pulled the halter, my new ground person Amy helped me get on (again -- was easier than expected), and then off immediately on our own!

lol staring at the ground for.... reasons?

Well, let me back up a second --- during our hand walking, Mondeuse also assisted me with pulling out some ground poles. We'd pull them off the rail, drag them into place, drop them, then proceed to walk over. If she was confused or concerned, she hid it well. 

walking ground poles = conquered!!

So once I was on and walking, we pretty quickly started aiming for the poles too. The horse has a strong draw to the gate (like Charlie did / does), so I like having physical obstacles and landmarks to facilitate random steering around. 

checkin herself out in the mirror

I also deployed a technique dressage trainer C had me use with Charlie in the early days: stay a bit off from the wall. The idea being, the wall can disguise a lack of connection or steering or straightness, and end up being a crutch. By staying slightly off the wall, you're forced to be more intentional in your riding. 

and again the other way

The mare was very relaxed so we pushed up into trot pretty soon. She's got a very forward way of going, despite her neck retraction, that I'm pretty excited about. And she's very easy to sit on, has a very solid balanced feeling even on small turns.

she miiiiiight be part saddlebred lol
also, emma, sheesh fix yo' wrists!

You can kinda see in the video that the first little bit of trot looks slightly less loose and free compared to her round pen video, which... honestly, is to be expected. But I was pleased to see that she opened up a bit more as we went. 

cherry picked random moment to prove that there *is* a neck in there

The neck retraction will take work and time (and professional guidance) to resolve, since she's clearly been traveling this way for a long, long time. Given that she still remains so loose and free over her back and in her stride, I'm reluctant to fuck around too much with it at this point. 

walk transitions slow to develop, but fluid

All in good time, tho, right? We kept ride #2 short and sweet, and called it after successfully walking quite nicely after the trotting. 

video from second sit!!

I hope to adopt a high frequency / low intensity routine to start. She still has a lot of new ground to cover --- literally, lol, like all the outdoor rings and other pathways around the farm. 

yep, that looks like a riding horse!!

So I want the actual "ridden" aspect to legit be the easiest and most predictable part of her work right now. She seems like a fast learner, tho, so I'm hopeful that esp with adding riding buddies to the mix, she'll tackle each new 'first' with aplomb.

ok so she's actually a pro at 3-walled crosstie situations. #noted

Other upcoming changes in her life including being eventually introduced to a larger herd. No hints yet as to when that will happen, but my money is on some time this week. Only bummer is that the group isn't out on full pasture grass right now bc a storm took out the fence, womp. Homegirl is READY for some grass!

could probably actually stand here for days

We will also eventually get a permanent stall assignment. Right now she and Stella are on reverse turnout since paddocks are full, so they're bunked next to each other and one other horse that overnights indoors. Once they integrate into the herd, tho, that won't be necessary and they'll get placed in their own stalls. 

and that's a wrap on a whole bunch of firsts with the new lady! 
also --- spot Mikey?? <3 <3

Which means I'll actually have to go buy dedicated supplies lol. Poor red headed step child has been begging and borrowing hand-me-downs of everything so far haha. 

That's ok, tho. We're big into taking things one step at a time around here. And this weekend we checked off the biggest of big ticket items: actually finding out if this is going to be a real horse for me. And I think so, guys! She seems like a nice one! It feels good to be excited again, esp since Charlie seems to still be struggling with hoof soreness. So I'm leaning in, lol. 

Hope you all had a good weekend too --- More to come soon!

(*Also, yes, Charlie got ridden both days too <3 once by me, and once by somebody else actually. More on that later too!)