Our First Day of Training - Special and Carol

Things are really GREAT.... The best thing I have done was to buy that horse - I love him to pieces. Thank God - I didn't chicken out and worry to much about owning a stallion or making Reilly mad. Reilly seems very interested in Special asking me every day how he is doing (Reilly works in Houston all week which is why he has not seen Special yet_). Anyway - Special and I had a great day today and in fact I'm celebrating as I type this with a St. Pauli girl since we seem to be out of cold diet cokes!

Last night I took Special over to my friend's Russ and Chris. They own a farm called Terrasano arabians. Russ is a real estate agent who used to be a horse trainer and in fact he has even seen Ruminaja Ali! I forgot the name of the farm he worked at where he saw Ali... But that was years ago.

So anyway - I bought a bunch of stuff of Special today - a new halter, lead line, stallion chain, long cotton lounge line, fresh bottle of fly spray, a lunge whip, electrolytes and some stuff called Amplify to help him gain some weight.

I got to the barn and went into his stall and I was a little afraid of him since he is a stallion. Each time I tried to go near him he would walk away from me. So finally I just decided I was not going to chase him around and if he wanted to get out of that stall he would have to come get me. I turned my back to him (a little - but still watching him out of the corner of my eye) and eventually he followed me around the stall. So then I gave him a full body scratch and then he seemed to trust me enough to hang with me. So then I put the lead line around his neck and then got his new halter on him. The size medium was too big - so I had to make it smaller. The nose band part is still to big. I guess they made it for a quarter horse.

So I put his chain (new brass chain) around the halter nose band and I took him out. He kind of wanted to really go - as if he had alot of pent up energy. So I told him "NO!!! " really loudly and I jerked on the chain a little - just enough so he would know I was not going to be pushed around just because I was a women. I didn't want to hurt him, but he just needed to know that he was not going to drag me around. So he figured that out really fast and I didn't have to do that again. The next time he was rushing me or pulling me I just told him "NO!" again and said "WALK!" and he slowed down. And then to further instill that we were going to go at my speed - I made him make a circle if he went too fast. I just was not going to let him rush forward. And so he learned VERY quickly. I was soooooo proud. He is almost human - it seems he knows exactly what I am trying to say to him.

When I went to pick him up yesterday at the vet's in Houston - he saw me through his window and I said "Special - I am here to get you! I'm you're person and I'm going to take you home" - that he let out a big Whinnie! It was as if he knew what I said. I thought maybe it was just luck that he whinnied at the right moment - so I told him again "I'm going to take you to your new home and I'm here just for you" and again he let out a big "Whinnie". So I really think he must understand me somehow. Its pretty wierd.

He jumped in the trailer in two seconds and was great all the way home! It was amazing.

Anyway - so back to today - so I walked him into his round pen - this was about at 8pm and the round pen is lighted at night. It was really nice because it was cooler out than in the daytime here. Its terribly hot here now.

So I took his lead line off and let him free lounge (is it lunge or lounge?). Anyway - he went trotting around like gangbusters - even cantered, bucked, reared up, and made some acrobatic moves in the air a few times. It was really funny. His tail stands straight up the whole time - its really amazing! And he has a really nice trot - very upright - like and english horse. That was very surprising. I went to go see what kind of shoes he had on - only to see that he was barefoot. He has really large feet which I like by the way. After about 10 minutes he was pretty tired and then just trotted a little. This round pen is about 15" tall and it has full boards to the ground. I love this facility for a stallion.

So after the round pen exercising I just had Special hang out for a little while and eat grass. And then we went back to the barn. I curry combed him for quite a while and a ton of hair came out - and dirt. Then I fly sprayed him - and he seems extremely happy.

When I went to go lead him down the aisle, there was a mare that I didn't even notice since she was in her stall and there is a mesh wall above the concrete wall. But Special must have X-Ray eyes because he immediately saw the mare and was "ready" to breed. I hand to shank him a little and say "NO!" again because he was kind of prancing and fully ready to breed. I was really surprised at how fast he can get excited! he is like 0 - 80 in 2 seconds flat! Speaking of which - his semen was still 40% at 72 hours!

My friend Chris said that when he got home from work today - that Special was sprawled out in the stall - sleeping! But when Chris came to the stall he got up. It appears he loves his wood shavings and sometimes sleeps during the day. He likes to just sack out sometimes.

So I was getting ready to leave the barn and I could tell that Special wanted me to stay a little longer. He whinnied at me again as if to day "don't go! You are not leaving me are you?" I told him that I'd be back tomorrow and earlier so we could hang out and play some more. So he looked satisfied with that and then went to go eat his hay. I said good night and he was good to go to bed.

So it was a great day since I got to see Special trot so well. He got some good exercise in that round pen. He learned that he could trust me - that I would take good care of him, but that he couldn't stomp on me either. So - it seems to be a good relationship between the two of us so far - it feels like he is my buddy and he seems genuinely interested in learning new things.

He is a great horse - not just on the outside - but on the inside too - he is like an old soul and I think he has a great future to look forward to... I feel extremely blessed to say the least.