Welcome to the Wild Side...: Apollo's Reveille is His Name

More About Me...

I started riding seriously at around 12, thanks to a 28 year old ex-polo horse named Bayou (R.I.P). He was my best friend and made me realize I actually had a talent with horses. I felt I was the only one who understood him and vise versa. He built my confidence to an all time high.
About a year after Bayou past we bought a 12 year old hot-tempered appy named Classy, who pretty much knew nothing. I was the first person to ride her in a long time; some might guess the reason was our personalities were quite alike. I should correct myself from before she did know some things but they needed to be refreshing, so I got her to a point where she was very manageable. After I turned 13 we were invited to a Drill Team called the Sheriffs Posse Drill Team by friends, and of course I brought Miss Classy along. Though we only stayed for a year it was a great chance to meet new horse people and experience new and different things. During my time with the Sheriffs Posse Classy had been injured. She had gotten herself aught on a t-post… nasty right? … Yea. It was horrible, but luckily she didn’t puncture a lung and the wound healed over time. I was still in the Drill Team so I thought it would be a perfect time to start riding our new 16.2 hand QH Ronny who hadn’t been ridden in over 4 years. So while my mom was at work and my stepdad still asleep I took him out and worked with him. It took a while because he was scared of literally everything but I got on this huge horse by myself and rode around our arena. I think back on it now and realize that was probably the stupidest thing I could’ve ever done, my mom thought so also, hehe. He was my new drill horse. But as luck would have it he was scared to death of flags and oh might I mention he bucked… bad; so I brought my 3 year old Bronson who I trained myself. He was neck rained, leg rained, and also taught all of the necessary things. So I figured he was perfect. Though I liked Drill Team my mom and I thought it best to quit, it was too expensive and wasn’t really for us.
While on the Drill Team we learned about the EMM, and that they were doing a Yearling Edition for a Youth class, so my mom asked if I wanted to do and I jumped all over it. But she said we’d have to give the mustang up for adoption after it was over it! I got accepted so we went and picked up my little girl Mina Caliente. She was a pistol coming out of the shoot but then she walked calmly into the trailer. I loved her instantly. When we got her home, for two weeks she wanted nothing to do with anyone stepping toward her or even thinking about touching her. But my mom said that because she always faces us when we come outside and when we are in the pen with her she is going to be super easy once we can get our hands on her. She was so right, we used feed and reverse thinking and once we got to touch past her withers she was mine! She was like butter in my hands. O yea, by the end of the 1st week my mom caved and said she's ours!!! Hee Hee
I don't claim to be a professional horse trainer by any means, but that is my goal and I have a life time to learn. Right now my mentors in all things horses are Kim Klossner , Parelli Natural Horsemanship and of course my Mom.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Apollo's Reveille is His Name

Apollo is our new little mustang we adopted a year ago. He's about 3 years old now and still has a long way to go and grow. He is definately not Mina, but he is teaching me a lot about all of the different horsenalities. He is very smart and learns quickly but he is afraid of his own shadow. I can now let him out in the pasture and bring him back in, I can pet him on his face with feed in my hand and I can walk up about 4 feet away from his face without feed or anything without him running away. This training process is taking a while, and much longer than it did with Mina, but I am now realizing it is a matter of learning how he works and what he's comfortable with. I'm not proud to admit I did want to give up at first and even asked a fellow Mustang Trainer to take him and get him started. But I am so glad now she didn't because I am fully ready to take on this big challenge. He is coming along nice and slow but thats ok because each day I get closer to him. His is my new Mustang challenge for this year...