Schooling Day

I went out early again to bring Tatiana out and tease Rosalie. She is still in and covered by Evan.  Today was a schooling day for the 3 foals and Rocky.  After our walk, of which we again needed to wear winter coats as it was only 35 degrees outside, I went to work bringing Lily and her filly into a stall then Soul and her colt. Soul's colt was worked with first. He is now a week old and was introduced to the halter. Once that was on he was give his very first tying lesson. 

He tried throwing himself back, jumping forward, and moving sideways and nothing worked to free him.  With young foals it is very important to stay in the stall as sometimes they throw themselves back so hard they fall. He did not fall but needed to be taught to move forward to give to pressure.  That took about 10 minutes and he finally stopped fighting. He got lots of praises and lots of scratches which he enjoys. The halter was put on and taken off 5 times before he was finished. Next was Rosalie's filly. She has been worked with and was much easier to put the halter on for the first time.  

She didn't take quite as long to settle down and she too was praised, petted and scratched all over.  By the time the halter had been put on and off 5 times she was following me around the stall. Irish's colt is almost a month old and he should have been haltered before now but today was also his first time. I expected quite a fight but was surprised how quickly he stood for the haltering. He also did very well with the tying lesson.  These Gypsian colts are SO easy to work with.

I took a short video of him which shows how quickly he learned to move forward to get away from the pressure.

I was putting them back in the paddock and opened the gate to the inside when it fell off the hinge. I am not strong enough to put it back by myself so just tied it to the post. The last colt worked with was Rocky. He is supposed to leave for his new home tomorrow and needed a loading refresher. 

He didn't go in as well as I expected but he did step in after encouragement. He was tied in the indoor arena, the trailer backed up to the door and his grain put in the bucket.  Only then did he remember he likes going in and out of the trailer.  A bit later I brought Tatiana inside to be with him.  He had finished his grain and was hoping in and out on his own.  They will spend the night together indoors. I'm not sure when his owner is arriving.

Mark had just gotten home from work when I finished I so walked down to see if he could help put the gate back on the hinge but then realized I needed to be at mom's in a few minutes so that job will need to be done tomorrow.  Spark and Rhonda relieved me at 5:00 pm so we could go to church.  Although Mark went on his own tonight and I watched from home. Tonight after church they are holding communion for those that weren't able to take it earlier. Mark missed, I didn't so didn't want to stay after that long to wait for him.  Gregg Rumbold had the message tonight.