It’s Expo Week

And Vin and I will be heading up to Albany on Thursday. There will be no time for other blog posts this week. Today, I’ll share a few photos from last Saturday. I was planning to give him a bath, so I tied him out by the hose and got all my supplies out.

It was cold and overcast. Then it started to rain. I still considered it, but Vinnie convinced me otherwise.

In the act of protesting the concept of baths in general…

And later tied to the ‘patience wall’. He did get a good grooming and shed out quite a bit of hair. It’s still coming off in handfuls. He may end up with the blanket look of a slick body and fuzzy head and neck. I’ll put his slinky on Wednesday night to help slick down the fuzz. It is nice to actually be able to see his markings without the crust of mud that he was sporting the last few months. The new barn is quite a bit drier than the last one, a huge improvement in general cleanliness!

I like that he is starting to look more balanced. He is in a growth spurt and has lost a little of the weight that he gained over the winter. Well, probably not the weight actually, but he’s stretched to carry it differently.

I’ve been enjoying doing some free work with Vin lately. We are working on Whoa and Stand. I ask him to trot and canter around the indoor arena. It’s basically like a large, square shaped round pen, as it’s 72 x 60 with some stuff in one end. He has picked up on the voice commands pretty well. He will stop from a trot after about a quarter round and stand still while I walk around. If he moves a foot, he is sent around again. By the second session, that happened only a couple of times. Tonight I started him with free leading. Twice he didn’t stay with me as I turned and was sent out. That’s all it took for him to stick right by my shoulder for turns and stops. His favorite reward is neck scratching, so I never had to break out the treats with him.

I will probably be very tired and get in late Sunday, so a blog update will likely be later next week. If you are local to Albany, OR, stop in and say hello at the Spanish Mustang Registry booth. Our breed demos are Friday at 6 pm, and Saturday and Sunday at 1 pm. Saturday, we are right after the Extreme Mustang Makeover auction. I will not be at all surprised if that runs late and we go after one o’clock.

In other news: I will be bringing a five year old mare home with me. She is a grulla with stockings and a blaze, a granddaughter of Comes From Dream, owned by Chuck and Kay Day. I’ll be starting her saddle training. I hope to have her going well enough by the SMR Meeting in June to do some trail riding. She is also for sale. I will be keeping a training log here. Her name is Bonita.