Playing ball, Lily gets it and a weird hoof thing

Mireya took this photo with a cell phone.
She's darn good at it for 7, don't you think?
Please ignore the goofy hair.
It's 700% humidity right now.

It was a fun, easy day at the barn. Since I had the kids with me, I didn't ride, but instead worked on round pen and clicker stuff. I wanted to get Lily out so we could get her back in the groove. She's been sitting so long that she needs the round pen time to get her head back.

Lily is a great horse and you can get on her even after a long break. But since it's my daughter I want her to take the time to work with her in the round pen.

Boy, were there some bucks! Lily can be intimidating when she's fresh like that, but Sierra didn't worry at all. She knows Lily is just all show. But getting her dialed back to a walk from a trot was just not happening. I went in there and pushed her a little harder, realizing that the usual technique of getting slightly ahead of her wasn't working at all.

So we did many, many turns. Then, seemingly out of no where Lily said "Oooooh! A WALK. Well, why didn't you say so?"

And then she did it all on both sides. Walk, trot, walk, trot, canter, trot, walk.

So we then spent some time doing some clicker training. We had Lily targeting a green lid belonging to one of our barn tupperwares. We hadn't really been working with Lily on the clicker and she was still targeting hands, not objects. By the end she was all over that lid.



Then it was Cibolo's turn. I tell you what, he's darn smart. He came into that pen and immediately did two loops at precisely the gait I asked in both directions. No need to work there. So no more circles - we went right into clicker training.

His eyes light up when we play like this. I've got him touching a big white plastic bag at the end of a lunge whip lately. In fact he likes to blow on it to make it wave.

So I felt he was ready to move on to something not directly connected to my hand. We started playing with a big blue ball. He quickly got the idea to touch it. By the end of our session he rolled it ever so slightly.

It was such fun. I always feel like I get to leap frog our connection when we do this kind of training. Cibolo just lights up. Can you tell from our photo?


Long, cool baths for both of horses and that's when I saw this on his left hind hoof - like a hole, very shallow, right near his cornet band.

What is it? Any ideas?

I'm so tired. I want to write more, but I've been fighting insomnia and the lack of sleep has caught up with me.

Stupid menopause. But that's another post.

Oh, and happy helmet day everybody. Remember, they call it an accident because you don't know when its going to happen. If you make your kid wear a helmet, don't be a hypocrite. Join us, the helmet hair army.

Because they can't put a cast on your brain.

Trailers, trails and horse hugs

Don't you just love the sign? And see the arrow on his head? I tell everyone that's his shipping instructions. This end up.





Today's trailer session with Cibolo went fairly well. He's not an easy loader (he has a bit of an excuse, he's six and his former trailer was much larger), so I want to work on this every day. We don't finish our day unless he loads in the trailer.

Same with Lily.

I got a jump start on the process with our trainer. I was getting Cibolo in the trailer, but not keeping him there long enough to get the butt bar on. But with the trainer at his tail and me at his head, we got it done.

Then we tried to load Lily next to him.

Yeah. Well, let's just say it's a work in progress. We did get her in. I bet she was in for a full second. Maybe two. I think I'll be on horse time with that one.

The trainer will be gone for 10 days and I plan on doing a one at a time loading every day I'm out there this week. The plan is to go on a trail ride this weekend, but it depends on how I progress. I know I can, eventually, get one horse in. But two? I may have to make two trips! LOL

Frankly I'm wishing I had a big roomy stock trailer. Somehow those seem easier. But this is a very nice trailer and I just need to work through it.


I took Bo out for our first mini trail ride. He has no shoes yet - the farrier had an encounter with a cutting horse and had to take the day off - so I limited my ride to a very grassy area. He did great going out on our own. Curious, willing, owwing in a few rocky spots. I rode in Sierra's saddle.

We weren't out long - we had already worked in the arena first and I did a short canter. The round pen is moved now, so I plan on doing more work there for both me and Bo. I gain a lot of confidence in a round pen, I'm not sure why.

Speaking of the arena, I set up the camera for a few pictures. We were terribly back lit, I don't know what I was thinking. But a funny thing happened. As I was waiting for the camera to click, he turned his head into me.




I reached over and held him and we both enjoyed the moment. The photos aren't very good, but the experience was... something else.

Bringing him home

The plan was to take pictures of the entire thing.

The drive. Here's a shot of the road.



You might want to look at it again, because that was the only picture I got of picking him up.

The only one. Well, I accidentally took a picture of the truck floor mats, but I'm sparing you that...

We left later than I hoped, a typical occurrence around here. Kids needed to be packed up and I was so over the top excited that I couldn't think straight. I was forgetting everything and constantly running back and forth.

As it turned out it was just me and Adam for the trip - the kids bailed to be in A/C and spongebob with Grammy. This wasn't a bad thing, we miss traveling together. Adam and I met rock climbing and sometimes our favorite part of climbing was the drive to get there.

This was a good thing since it's a 3 hour drive to pick up the horse.

When we got there, there he was, tied to a hitching post. Audrey met us there and was riding her horses in the arena - June Bug, her quarter horse, and ponying a beautiful young bay Irish draft (who's name escapes me).

I was a little nervous. Would he be the same? And, perhaps stupidly, would he still like me?

He was exactly as he was before. He followed me around with his eyes, at one point leaning against the hitching post trying to get a little closer. Even Adam was surprised. "He's just like Canyon was with you!"

My pocket pony. Just what I hoped for.

We loaded him in the trailer, which took a few tries since he's used to a larger trailer, grabbed some lunch and headed home. At one point we opened the window because he seemed awfully cramped, but he literally stuck his head out as far as it would go and I was sure he was going to get it chopped off.

He is, apparently, part giraffe. We literally had to push his head back in.

Then, at home when we released the but bar he calmly turned around in the trailer to come out. LOL. Guess it wasn't so small after all.


He greeted everyone with a high pitch whinny and we settled him in.

By the time I came back the next morning everyone was going on and on about him. He was curious, respectful, handsome, sweet, sweet, sweet.

This is the horse that was a little stand offish? Here, he's a rock star.

And what is his name? I know you're wondering.

It took me three days (which is why I didn't post anything for so long. All my computer time was spent looking up names) to come up with it. Part of the challenge was after spending a morning with him on Sunday, I'd decided that he wasn't hispanic. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. Maybe because his papers show that he's from the Dakotas, maybe because he has such a classic quarter horse look, maybe because he seemed to not respond to Cariño, Lumbre, and half a dozen other contenders.

This was troubling since his name for years was Lobo. (I just spoke with Pam, his previous owner, and she said she never liked Lobo for a name either! Isn't that funny?)

So I started to jot some names down. I enlisted the help of my office mates. We came up with these.

Yes, I know. I should have gone into medicine.

So I looked on line for HOURS. Famous horses. Stars in the sky. Movie mounts. Famous cowboys. Places. Attitudes. Rescue horses (those people at rescues are so clever!).

I even hit up my sister for help since she helped name Canyon.

She came up with d'Artagnan which I loved, because d'Artagnan was such a sweet guy in the 3 musketeers. But it tends to sound like Canyon and it's darn long.

I had sorta settled on Caspian, which sounded great, but wasn't quite right.

Then we hit on it.

He really looked like a Bo (as in Beau) to me, but that was too simple.





Then I realized I had a name. A name I liked before I picked Canyon - the Canyon runner up name that actually fit him perfectly.

Cibolo.

Cibolo, after Cibolo Creek, after a place I used to go to hear live music, after a town where the last of the ranches outside San Antonio linger outside the rim of malls, Cibolo which has a spanish ring with a nice western feel (cibolo means buffalo, actually). It has Lobo in it, which is fortunate given his freeze brand:


But Cibolo has the sound of running hooves in it for me.

And I can call him Bo.

So, there we go. With Cibolo.

I think he likes it.

(I love a horse that licks and chews. Makes me think I'm doing something right.)