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| Uno's first turnout. |
Promise No More arrived on Sunday March 13. His first couple of days we worked on getting him used to his new surroundings. We worked on cross tying, which he did wonderful at. I also worked on lots of touching and grooming on his blind side. He has adjusted very well to his disability, which we believed to have happened during his last race in July 2010. In fact by the end of the week I don’t even really find myself treating him any different when on either side. I do tend to lead him on his right side, and on occasion he will cock his head slightly when passing large items like wheel barrels or trash cans. But he is not a jumpy horse, and has not "spooked" at one thing with me. His first turnout was pretty uneventful. He got maybe one buck and a couple laps in at the canter, before just wondering around looking for something to do. I think his favorite thing about the turnout is the deep water bucket in one of the corners. He is very smart when turned out and doesn’t get himself too riled up.
Since Uno has been already off the track for at least 7 months, I decided he could go right into working. By his third day I started to lunge him with just a bridle. My goal was to get him lunging with voice commands on his "good" side (to the right) at the walk, trot and canter, before even attempting to lunge on his blind side. Uno took to lunging VERY well. I would love to take credit but I really think this horse has had some ground training already put into him. He walks out on the line very well, and doesn't get too excited or silly when trotting and cantering. In fact he can be a little lazy at times. The first couple of days we would "end" by switching the line to his blind side and hand walking him on his left around the perimeter of the arena. I walked along side of him keeping my right hand on his side, almost where my leg would be. If he would slow I would put pressure on his side while using the voice command "walk". This would keep him moving and familiar again with what this command meant when he couldn't see me. If he would start to drift to the inside of the arena, I would even put the line against his neck with my hand pressure on his side to push him out to the rail. He is very smart, and picked up on this pressure quickly.
By day three Uno was extremely calm at the walk, trot, canter and halt to the right. I decided he had done so well, and appeared un-challenged this day, that I would attempt to lunge to the left. At first when I sent him out to the rail, he took a few trots out, then halted and turned towards me so he could "see" me. It was very cute and won a sympathy vote (which he gets a lot from the barn goers). I laughed but immediately walked him back out and asked for a trot. He went out at the trot immediately. I notice by his ears that he was very aware of where the lounge whip was trailing on the sand. He would use this noise of just the whip dragging along the sand behind him as an excuse to get a little over excited. So I picked up the whip off the ground (which remember he can't see) and he immediately settled into just listening to my voice. I would give the whip a little flick when asking for the canter which he would hear and responded well too. The first day I only did a few minutes of walk, trot, and canter on his blind side before asking for a "WHOA" which he is SO good at. We ended on such a positive note, that he got a nice turnout and roll afterwards.
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| Uno lunging at the trot on his blind side. |
We were able to duplicate lunging on both side two more days before the weather took a turn for the worse. Im taking advantage of of the rain to take care of things like dental work and getting some new shoes on Uno, since he arrived barefoot. Uno is a little on the skinny side so I have started him on small amounts of beet pulp and rice bran his first week. I'll work on increasing this amount and adding corn oil as well. Overall he has done very well his first week and is turning out to be a very smart young horse.
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| Uno getting dental work done |
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