Akal Ranch

I ran into a friend that I hadn’t seen in a long time at the Ann Armour lunging demo a couple of Fridays ago. Afterward, I was lunging Paisano to practice some of what I had learned. We were also chatting. I mentioned that I though he would make a great driving pony. My friend says, “I’ve got a cart that’s been sitting around. Do you want it?” Do I?? Well, YES! I’ve been looking around for an affordable training cart for a few years now. I didn’t want to pay $500 for a cart that I would have to upgrade to do CDEs and entry level carts that would work were anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000. I picked it up on Friday. Yea!! Thank you Candee!

It is really pony size, so I will be looking for larger wheels. There are several inches of room in the frame for that. I think that I can go to almost 26″ in diameter, though that may not be needed. I would love to get wooden wheels, but a short search of google didn’t turn up much. I’m also not sure that I want to invest that much in it. Bicycle or motorcycle wheels will work just fine.

The bolt holding the singletree is rusted on, so that may be more of a project to replace. I’ve soaked it in WD40 and will try again in a couple of days.

I will also be reupholstering the seat and may make the back a little taller. I have some birch plywood that will look nice stained and showing in back. I might even consider adding a dash and a spares box under the seat. But before all that, it will be treated for rust and repainted. What color though?? I would love to hear opinions. If you post a color suggestion, please also consider the upholstery color. I welcome ideas!

It will likely be driven most with Vinnie, a dun sabino, who looks like a strawberry roan in the summer. If the shafts fit, I might try Lily some day too. Black, of course, is safe and would fit with anything. My harness is black with stainless hardware. I might also consider a dark mahogany or maybe dark green. Please comment and let me know what you think…

Candee sent along a couple of sacks of harness that she got with it. There were parts of two leather harnesses and two nylon. The leather was too far gone to salvage, but I washed the nylon parts in the washer. Yes, the husband asked what was making all the noise… I had put them in pillow cases, but didn’t tie them shut, so it all came out loose anyway. I tried! It looks like I have everything except the saddle, with doubles of some pieces. Even if I don’t end up using it, at least it’s now free of mold, dirt and cobwebs.

It was serendipitous to have this just fall into my lap. I guess that the time was not right, when I was looking so hard before. And with Vinnie soon coming down the hill for more work, it’s great timing. I may not get it done in time to try hitching Paisano, but I think that Vinnie will likely do well driving. And I’ll be ready for him! I wonder how he will like my strap of rump bells? Paisano carries them without a care. They are loud and quite fun! Though most of the horses in the stalls next to the arena at my new barn didn’t care too much for them. I might have to save them for road driving. Come to think of it, thy are loud enough to be a good safety warning that we are coming. And they would be very fun for parades!

Can you tell that I am excited about what we can do with this new addition?

The CONTEST

If I end up picking a color combination suggest here in the comments, I will send the winner an original piece of artwork, likely a monoprint with hand additions, similar to some pieces that I did recently for a mailArt project, but larger…

It won’t be the image posted here. I’m showing as an example only. This one was mailed out to a member of my twitter group. If you are interested in knowing more about that, here is a link to the Flickr group of pieces received.