11/01/2012
Today my friend took me up to see Thumper. I took along some gear to try on him, and ended up spending about 2 hours playing around with a fully saddled up horse! He took to it so well!
When we first got to his owner's place, I went out to the paddock and caught him (with no hassles). We then stood around chatting and patting the other horses in the paddock (whilst Thumper completely ignored me lol!). Finally we made a move to take him into the stable.
I gave him a quick grooming to take off the surface dirt, he fell asleep as I did so. I attempted to groom his mane too but only had a comb to use, so gave up. (It just needs a wash and some detangler in it lol).
I then proceeded to introduce him to his first ever saddle. I let him sniff everything, and moved slowly so as not to spook him. I spent a lot of time fitting everything as he is a big boy and I had to let everything out! After swapping over the breastplate and letting the girth right out, I moved onto his boots. He flinched when I first undid a bit of velcro but after that he was chilled out.
The next step was putting his bridle on. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it, but he'd been so quiet with everything else that I figured I'd give it a go. I untied him just in case he went crazy (didnt want him working himself up more by being tied up). He tossed his head a few times and tried to walk off, and I broke my homemade browband (should have used more glue lol!) so I swapped bridle. I grabbed his nose and tried again, and got it on easily. I had to let out the straps a bit because they were all too tight for him, but he stood quietly whilst I fiddled. I then took him out to the paddock and walked him around, got him listening to me. I did the girth up with no issues. I also had a go at lungeing him, but he got really confused so I let someone else have a turn. He still didn't understand so we tried lungeing him while I lead him from the outside. He was fine then, but as soon as I stopped, he stopped too. I decided I would leave it until I had access to a round yard. So I did lots of cuddling and following around. He was great. I also pulled a stirrup down and put weight onto it, pulled the saddle and jumped around next to him, he stood there quiet as a lamb! I also tried on his summer combo and fly veil. Both fit but needed to let out the legstraps a bit in order to tighten the chest strap, so will do that next time.
My friend and I may have also found agistment for our horses. Fingers crossed!
