Thursday, August 28, 2008

Ol' Yeller, Bay Boy, & Sorrelly...

Alright so I promise I would post again today, and I am a gal true to her word!

This morning I was rather rudely awakened at approximately 6:30 am by my father. Now I have lately been up at about 6:00 am, so I slept in slightly. But, I hadn't slept well that night. Thus my reason to complain!!

Daddy informed me that we were gonna put the first saddle on the colts. He brought them up yesterday and he and CJ I guess got 'em haltered and worked with a little bit. These colts are 2 years old and there are three of them; we halter broke them last fall. Now you should know something about my Daddy; when it comes to horses, he's rather brilliant, and surely thorough. When he halter breaks a weanling... It isn't just breaking 'em to the halter. When we are done, they are ready to have a saddle on them, with the exception of the fact that they are... well, weanlings. But we can trim their feet, prepare them for a rope swinging over their ears, the cinch, we flag 'em out, it's a very thorough proccess I assure you. That way when we get them up to saddle break them, we just have to refresh their memory a little bit. They have already been prepared for the saddle.

Of course, you could always just throw a saddle on the horse, cheek 'em down and step right up. But you sang sure better be able to ride, and it's hard on the horse.

So anyways. I get dressed, feed Harley {I am so proud of her~ I bottle feed her once at night, once in the morning, and she eats, actually eats the rest of the day!} and head outside.

There is a bay, whom I have nicknamed Bay Boy until he gets a proper name. This is CJ's project. He says he's never really had to break a horse like this, like work with 'em like we do, but he's doing good! Bay Boy is pretty tall for his age; 2 years old, and about 15.2. He's pretty nice looking, is really docile, a little bit sticky with his feet, but overall pretty nice.

I'll brief you on being 'sticky' in case some of ya'll are reading that don't really know ranch slang. ;] Some horses will move out real well, and some are lazier and just want to brace and be sticky. When they move out, it's better, in my opinion. Or so I was taught by my Daddy, and his theory makes perfect sense. When they are sticky, they tend to brace against things. If they get scared, they just brace and don't know how to move their feet and relieve themselves of the pressure. So... they buck. Because they know not what else to do. The other kind of horse, will react. He will move his feet and go somewhere. You can work with this. If a horse is scared, or nervous, but will move his feet, you can work with that. If he won't, he just freaks out and bucks or something. Not good. SO....

There is this little sorrel horse, who gets the norm name for a sorrel, Sorrelly. That's what most of the fellas I know call a sorrel; Sorrelly. I probably won't give him a better name, since I won't keep him. A guy I've known all my life named Bill had this mare. Well he gave the mare to DK {our boss} to use as a brood mare. The catch is, he gets the first horse colt out of this mare. Well Sorrelly was the first colt. The deal was, he was broke when he got him. So he called up Daddy earlier this summer and asked if I would start that colt for him.

WHAT THE HECK?!?!

I've ridden colts before, but never started one by myself. Bill- are you INSANE??

Furthermore, he wants to pay me. Hmmm.

He has ridden lots of horses my Daddy has started, and sure likes the way he starts his horses. And I guess Bill knows that Daddy would help me out, and said he would rather have me break this colt out of anybody.

SO. I have a job. LOL. It will be fun! He is probably the best minded out of the 3. When he was nervous about something, he would move away from it, but wouldn't just bust outta there or try to run off. When he danced away, he would keep slack in the rope, was real soft in his neck, it was great. He bucked when we saddled him, I mean, you rarely find one that won't. But when he got his 20 seconds of bucking out, he was done. He just totally relaxed and forgot he even had a saddle on.

And then there's... Ol' Yeller.

-dreary music-

This little fella is the cutest darn horse you ever did see. He's a palomino with a blaze, and he's probably about... 13. or 14 HH. I'm dead serious. He is the the most compact, stockiest muscled little critter, just as handsome as can be. I need to get pictures of him.

But there's always the dumb blonde.

This horse has a wacko mind. He's really difficult. I mean... like Daddy goes at him with his handy dandy little plastic WalMart flag on the end of a stick. He just braces up SO hard, and then blows out of there like nothin. I mean good Lord... Daddy tried to saddle him; we had no problem with the other two. We prepared them with the blanket, so the saddle, they only took two steps. Well Ol' Yeller blew outta there and Daddy lost his grip on the saddle and it fell off. So we ended up hobbling the poor sucker and getting him saddled. He reared up and went to pitching around. When he finally settled down, he'd busted the hobbles off, and when Daddy went to flagging them around, there he went again. He'll dang sure be interesting...

I told Daddy that if he had a completely different disposition, he'd be a great kid horse; he's the perfect size! Daddy replies with, "Yeah, right now he's a great step-kid horse."

LOL.

Okay well now I must go. All of ye must comment on Bloggy's makeover! Adios!

1 comment:

Joshua said...

I have to comment on your new layout? Well, it looks like a pair of jeans...

Step kid horse. I LOVE IT!

Joshua