Champion cutting mare
We acquired a new schoolie. Something about a barn nearby running out of space and this new mare staying with us on a lease for a few months to test as a schoolie. Not that we really have space, but we have excellent shuffling skills, and we've outsourced our neighbour Farmer Fred's paddocks for the overflow.
Anyway, new horse. 4y/o buckskin percheron/QH cross, so far as we can tell. She's 16-something hands and a little overweight. And by a little, I mean, it doesn't matter how tight you get the girth--the saddle could still jiggle around a foot or more atop her, um, insulation.
My job was to introduce this horse to one of our turnout herds. But first, Susy had me turn her out alone just to get some of the beans out. She calmly began eating grass as soon as I turned her loose, so I figured, 'huh, no beans,' and went about my day. Less than an hour later, Mel showed up with a panting, sweaty mess of a mare. "She busted out." Huh. Okay. Time to start an instruction manual--first points: 1. Do not overfeed.
Obvs. 2. Do not turn out alone. No, for serious.
So Susy suggested I turn her out with a friend. Maybe one of the mares from the mixed herd. Basically, we have two schoolie herds: the mixed herd, and the pony herd. Mixed herd has 10 horses, and the pony herd hovers around 30. In the interest of balancing numbers, mixed seemed like a good call.
I threw Candy, one of our trusty, benign schoolie mares, out in the arena and cautiously added the new mare--whose name, by the way, was Bertha. No joke. We've since started calling her Franny, as a gentle step back from 'extremely large and frumpy.'
Within a few seconds in the arena with Candy, Franny had asserted that she was definitely in charge, and started herding Candy around the ring in a perfect figure-8 at a working trot. Candy, a clunky quarterhorse with a club foot that actually looks kind of like a cow, isn't really at her best in the working trot, but she really had no choice but to oblige.
I decided to add Candy's best friend, Sugar, to see if it would level out the playing field...
...Within seconds of adding Sugar, Franny had both mares trotting a perfect figure-8 abreast.
Okay. Big guns. Time for Daisy, the completion of the 'stripper trio' of schoolie mares (I call them 'the strippers' because they consistently manage to lose blankets in the winter, and they all happen to have stripper names). Anyway, Daisy busts onto the scene, legs a-flailin' at Franny... And Franny just laughs, shoos Daisy toward Candy and Sugar, and before ya know it all three are trotting a perfect figure-8 abreast.
I let this go on for about two minutes before I accepted that the status quo had been asserted and nothing was going to change for my poor strippers. I headed into the ring to remove Franny.
Franny would have none of the idea. She kept herself just out of reach for my first few attempts. Then a little further out of reach. And further... So I started to jog to keep up. And about that time I noticed Candy, Sugar, and Daisy all beside me in a perfect line.
Yup, Franny now had ALL FOUR OF US trotting a perfect figure-8, abreast.
Forget schoolie. This horse is a sheepdog.
Anyway, new horse. 4y/o buckskin percheron/QH cross, so far as we can tell. She's 16-something hands and a little overweight. And by a little, I mean, it doesn't matter how tight you get the girth--the saddle could still jiggle around a foot or more atop her, um, insulation.
My job was to introduce this horse to one of our turnout herds. But first, Susy had me turn her out alone just to get some of the beans out. She calmly began eating grass as soon as I turned her loose, so I figured, 'huh, no beans,' and went about my day. Less than an hour later, Mel showed up with a panting, sweaty mess of a mare. "She busted out." Huh. Okay. Time to start an instruction manual--first points: 1. Do not overfeed.
Obvs. 2. Do not turn out alone. No, for serious.
So Susy suggested I turn her out with a friend. Maybe one of the mares from the mixed herd. Basically, we have two schoolie herds: the mixed herd, and the pony herd. Mixed herd has 10 horses, and the pony herd hovers around 30. In the interest of balancing numbers, mixed seemed like a good call.
I threw Candy, one of our trusty, benign schoolie mares, out in the arena and cautiously added the new mare--whose name, by the way, was Bertha. No joke. We've since started calling her Franny, as a gentle step back from 'extremely large and frumpy.'
Within a few seconds in the arena with Candy, Franny had asserted that she was definitely in charge, and started herding Candy around the ring in a perfect figure-8 at a working trot. Candy, a clunky quarterhorse with a club foot that actually looks kind of like a cow, isn't really at her best in the working trot, but she really had no choice but to oblige.
I decided to add Candy's best friend, Sugar, to see if it would level out the playing field...
...Within seconds of adding Sugar, Franny had both mares trotting a perfect figure-8 abreast.
Okay. Big guns. Time for Daisy, the completion of the 'stripper trio' of schoolie mares (I call them 'the strippers' because they consistently manage to lose blankets in the winter, and they all happen to have stripper names). Anyway, Daisy busts onto the scene, legs a-flailin' at Franny... And Franny just laughs, shoos Daisy toward Candy and Sugar, and before ya know it all three are trotting a perfect figure-8 abreast.
I let this go on for about two minutes before I accepted that the status quo had been asserted and nothing was going to change for my poor strippers. I headed into the ring to remove Franny.
Franny would have none of the idea. She kept herself just out of reach for my first few attempts. Then a little further out of reach. And further... So I started to jog to keep up. And about that time I noticed Candy, Sugar, and Daisy all beside me in a perfect line.
Yup, Franny now had ALL FOUR OF US trotting a perfect figure-8, abreast.
Forget schoolie. This horse is a sheepdog.