Day 20

The little guy did great today, we got a bunch of awesome pictures too!  Worked on lunging really softly at a walk and trot.  He's doing awesome!  He's still a little unsure about things, but I think he'll come around.  I can't believe I've had my horse for this long!  Also I've decided on changing his name, Twain was just kind-of hard to call him, but I'm sure the name I picked out is just right for his personality.  Let's call him Jesse!  Like Jesse James or Jesse Katsopolis from that old show Full House.  I think the name's pretty fitting, and it's a WHOLE lot easier calling him Jesse than it is Twain!  Enjoy the pictures...if anybody has any question feel free to leave a message on my blog.

Itinerary: Days 10 - 19

Day 10 : Big Brother graduates
Day 11-15 : Finals Week and Current Issue Paper for MHF
Day 16 & 17 : Little Sister's Ballet Recital "Alice In Wonderland"
Day 18: Load the new mustangs and head to Whitesboro, Texas
Day 19: Head to Nebraska

This has pretty much  been my schedule for the past week.  Sleep has been removed from my schedule almost entirely!  After working with my mustang on Day 9, my family and I headed back to town to get ready for my big brother's graduation.  Then I jumped right into finals week with side-typing of papers for the Mustang Heritage Foundation.  Just as I had said before, SCHOOL COMES FIRST.  NO EXCEPTIONS!!!  And sure enough all the hard work I had done all year long paid off with straight A's for my whole junior year of High School!  After school let out for the summer, it was on to back stage help for the biggest ballet performance on of my sister's has ever had.  She had the lead role as Alice in "Alice in Wonderland."  She did a fabulous job at it too!  After her two night performances with a little hair styling help from her big sister (ME!) we headed back up to the ranch and I finally got to see my yearling again.  But shortly after heading up there we were moving again.  We dropped two of my sisters off at camp and then the rest of the family went to Whitesboro with me and our mustangs.

I have failed to mention that I get to apprentice great people and horse trainers.  I said my farewells to my family and then we headed to Nebraska.  Here are some of the pictures of my moms and sister's mustangs, I can't wait to see what they'll look like after a couple months on good feed and a little training on them will do!

My mom named him Justin Time, can't wait to see what great food and care will turd him into!

My yearling neighing good-bye to his buddies.

Day 9

Twain was on his toes today, his responsiveness to my cue's has expanded to even greater heights.  This morning I tied him away from his buddies to try to make his attention more on me than Hoof Prince and my mother's mustang.  Twain was tied for about an hour while I exercised my other horses.  When I went to check on him, he neighed with delight at me so I untied him and we went for a walk around our property.  On our walk Mr. Twain's focus never swerved from me so when I saw some logs I decided to test out how responsive he really was.  Just like the barrels on Day's two and three, I pointed at the logs and sure enough he popped right over them!  He's an amazing jumper and really collects himself nicely.  After our little log adventure with the fallen down tree's I headed towards Folly Lake.  Folly Lake is really just a pond that got the name Folly from our mule Folly.  At the pond I yet again tested Mark Twain's willingness to go where I ask him.  This time re was a little more reluctant to get his feet wet, but in a matter of minutes he was standing patiently in the water, taking in a few gulps while swishing his tail happily.  Twain is definitely a keeper!  After saying good-bye to my beloved Pilgrim I'm going to try my hardest to hold onto my Mark.

Mr. Twain's freeze-brand.

How to read Mark Twain's freeze-brand.

In this picture he was a little nervous with my stick and stick.

Twain's still a little weary, but he's still stands still, what a good boy!

Calm and Relaxed...

I never knew a mustang could have such wonderful conformation!  He really is something else!

This picture really describes my yearling, "Hey what's that?"  He's a horse that is extremely aware of his surroundings.

Day 8

Mark Twain isn't he a good-looking Mustang?

So you might ask where days 5-7 went, well there's this thing called school, and I've learned through experience that even though I love my horses, SCHOOL COMES FIRST! NO EXCEPTIONS!!!  So that is what I abide by.  Well I guess I'll start with tonight, Friday, the 8th day of my little yearling's new life.  Considering I hadn't haltered him in a few days, i'm glad I had put down a solid foundation before I returned to school.  I ended up putting him in the round pen and doing some simple lunging exercises to gain his attention.  It was a long thirty minutes before I put the halter on him, but by then I'd already had him following me around like a puppy dog.  He's quite the magnificent horse.  Once I got a halter one him he acted like an angel.  He moved his body in every which direction I told him, even did a little side-stepping!  I finally decided on a name for my yearling, his name shall be Mark Twain, after the famous Samuel Clements (a.k.a. penname Mark Twain who wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.)  I think I'll call his Marcus or Mr. Twain for short.  I just can't seem to stop calling him Mister.  It's the first thing that popped into my head when I met him.  But even then I only had about half an hour until darkness hit...so hopefully I'll have more time to work with him tomorrow.

Trust

"...he who follows me shall never walk in darkness..." John 8:12 partially.

Re-haltering! He stood patiently as I gently slipped the halter onto his face.

Day 4

New location for the boys to live and all the other guys are so excited for the new members of the herd!  Everybody's trying to get a chance to say hello to Mister and the other new mustangs!   Our herd definitely made them feel welcome in their new home.

Mister checking out his new surroundings.

Our boys saying hello.

Even Bucephalus and Kokopeli check out what all the commotion is about over by the round pen.

I decided to get back to work on Mister, but he decided he's rather eat the leaves than have me sack him out with them.

Picked up all four feet again, he's doing much better today.

Moving the hind-quarters around the fore-quarters.

This little guy sure is a smart horse!  But he still needs a name, name after name has went through my head but none of them seem to fit his personality and looks quite right.  I'm sure I'll come up with just the right name by the end of the month...until then I'll just have to call him Mister.

Day 3

Still haven't named him...he's doing just absolutely fabulous!  He didn't like the flag very much, but he adjusted to it being near him soon enough.  Today we worked on movements.  I taught Mr. how to pivot on his hind-quarters and his forequarter, back up, and leave at a trot on lunging.  My yearling is great at pivoting!  For the first time pivoting and he's already getting 3-4 steps easy both directions I consider that pretty good!  Can't wait to see what great things he'll do for me in the weeks to come!

He didn't like the flag very much.

Mister has quite the kick when he's scared of something, but I'd rather him paw at that flag then my body.

Maybe it's not so bad?

Next comes the saddle blanket!

For the third day he's doing pretty good!  We did a little lunging with the saddle.

We jumped twice with the saddle on, both times he gave a little buck with it.

Didn't leave the saddle on very long since he's still a baby. 

Mustang smooches!!!

Mister and Me.

Day 2

The horses did awesome today!   They are now leading like champs.  We loaded them in and out of the trailer for their second time, jumped them over barrels, and started working on their lunging!  Mr. has been doing absolutely fabulous and has been following me around like a puppy dog all day long.

I asked him to got over the barrels...

...and what to you know he went over them!  No problem jumping!  We'll make a  jumper out of him soon enough! 

Mr. No-name jumping the barrels for me.  He's really nice and collected when he jumps, I think he'd make a great jumper or dressage horse when he's older!

Working on desensitizing him a little bit more.  I'm getting him used to me reaching down to pick up his little hooves.

We went for a little walk to check out all the new sights and smells for my little Mr.

He stands patiently all the while being tied to the fence.

Conformation shot, he really is a stunning little horse!

Didn't take any pictures of him loading into the trailer today, but he's a picture of Day  #1's loading session!

My little bay is doing fabulous!  He's quite a horse!  Really smart and quick to move

Pick-up Day!

My yearling running through the shoots at the holding facility.

 Today's the day we picked up our new mustangs.  We arrived at the holding facility an hour before scheduled time to discover we were already 6th in line for loading up our horses!  Wow some people really got there early!  About an hour and a half later we loaded our horses up and headed back to start training!

Jennifer's horse who she named Hoof Prince!

The 1st time I tried to touch him.

From Wild...

...to Willing.

 Overall my yearling did awesome on his first day in this brand new world!  Haven't decided on a name for him so until then I'll just refer to him as Mr.  Mr. is turning out to be a pretty smart horse so far, he let me pet him all over today!  I can't wait to see how he'll do in the days to come!