The BIG Walk

Nice day out today. I was able to get the barn clean early and with no extra extra chores, I brought in the girls an hour before everyone else and let them have their grain.

Lady sucked her grain down like an industrial vacuum cleaner, but she was much more patient today in regards to everything else in the world. Cookie, it only took about 20 minutes tonight for pretty much everything to be scarfed down.

While they were eating their grain, I carried water to everyone's buckets, emptied the outside buckets and threw bales down from the loft. It was about 4:30 when I got done. So I decided, since Lady was done and I wasn't ready to bring in the other ponies, I better start the girls on their training program.

I took Lady out first. It was her first walk away from the barn, her bff, her mother and everything she knew to be consistent and comfortable in her life. I always call their first outing "THE BIG WALK". You never know what you are going to get the first time out. Stalled pony, rearing, bucking, kicking, biting, circles, speed.... you get the idea. Anything is fair game as far as the young ones go.

Lady was kinda of a mix. We got out the barn door fine. She only shied at a couple things, but not really bad. She was pretty curious to see what we were up to. A few steps out of the barn though I got the stall. I let her get her bearings and then nudged her with the stick ( I have a small stiff whip in which I nudge ponies hinnies). She didn't budge. So I let her sit another second or two. Then she walked a few good solid steps, looked around. Not a big deal.

About half way down the driveway, she stalled again. Only this time I couldn't figure out why. Then I saw it, Tucker had snuck up behind her. Well at least she didn't let loose on him. I just told him to move off, which he did. He kept a few paces farther back.

Things were going well, so I thought we would go out the gate and walk across to the neighbors yard. Well we stood in the middle of the road for along time. There was these yellow markings which she couldn't get a fix on (the middle of the road dividers). She didn't snort, hiss or anything. But she did look at it for a long time. I asked her to move over them and she finally did.

We touched the other side of the road and turned around in the neighbors driveway. Then we decided it was okay to be animated. I knew I had to get her back into our yard. So we hurried at a bit faster walk. We stalled slightly at the yellow markings again, but we didn' t jump over it, we just rushed over it.

We got into our driveway and I thought things were going fairly well, so I asked her to trot. It was a stiff guarded trot, not too bad I thought. I halted her half way up the drive way and asked her to square her back feet and stand. Well the squaring of the back feet went fine, but the standing - not so much. She should have been called jitterbug.

I finally got her to stand, but not square. Only once did I get a glimpse of her glory, back feet square, front feet parked out, back level and neck, well not quite stretched, but good enough for a glimpse. Sometimes that's all it takes to keep moving forward.

Finally we went back to the barn. Whew! We made it. No broken bones, no bruises, no loose pony, no nuthin!. I would call it successful.

I believe she will catch onto the game quite fast.

I looked at the sky and decided if Cookie was done with her grain, she should go on her first big walk too. Her walk was not as eventful. She willingly went with me, trotted, stopped and came back to the barn with a spark in her step. It's gonna be the stop, square and stand that will be the challenge. I didn't even get her to stop long enough to take one breath.

Huh, their first BIG WALK! All done. No we can only move forward in training from here.

On another note, the All Stars Lists came out. Smokie hit 3 of the lists, I am very pleased with that. Opal hit one list, but I expected that, she is a Classic and there are tons of classics that show, very tight competition. Ruffles hit 2 lists, which was a pleasant surprise. And Tulip, my Tulip made me proud. In only two shows, she hit the ASPR Mares All Star List. GO TULIP!!!!!

When I look at those lists, it tells me I am doing something right. All Star Points are different from the Amateur Awards. This is on the ponies themselves. And seeing as in 2008 we only made 2 local shows and Congress, that tells me my ponies are just as special as I have always thought. They did good!