Watch Out Clinton Anderson!

So today we all played "vet" for the day. We looked out this morning and saw our personal horses were out of their pen eating all of the hay. Since they were already out and we were going to have to chase them somewhere, Matt thought we should throw them in the round pen and doctor them up a bit. They easily went in the round pen and one by one they got their West Nile shot, wormer, fly spray, and their feet trimmed. This took quite a few hours (14 horses), of course Matt didn't trim all of them. We gave our stallion a bath and brushed out his mane and tail, it was so bad that we used almost a whole bottle of conditioner to detangle it. What work these horses are! I'm saying that sarcastically. We usually never get to our own horses, that's probably why it took so long today--they all needed TLC.

We have 3 young horses that are a little difficult to catch. They've been learning bad tricks from our mare. After their doctoring, Matt had tied two of them up and left our yearling in the round pen. At the end of the day, I thought...I could probably halter break that yearling...even if he is bigger than our two year olds. Matt doesn't have a lot of time, this would help him out. I guess I got inspired by Mesa who leads her pony everywhere all day long. How hard could it be?....after Matt ropes him to catch him...I can take this project on. ha! Well, after some advice from Matt on how he teaches them to lead, Joker and I started to learn together. Matt's advice was working and Joker was gentling up okay and we had accomplished what Matt told me to do. Then after a long time, I couldn't make him just lead straight so, got some more advice from Matt, and it worked again! I was so thrilled that this horse went from not being caught easily to leading! and backing! and turning! and stopping! and was easily caught! Matt was up on top of the roof of his tack shed fixing it and I kept yelling to him and Jerel, "Watch this!" They weren't very impressed. They said Good Job out of kindness and encouragement, but it was nothing new to them. As Mesa and I were leading our horses back to the pasture (Joker was actually lead in--not ran it) Mesa (who had watched the whole process) said to me, "Mom you did a good job with your horse." I laughed and told her thanks. At least I wasn't the only one impressed!