Yesterday was a different story, however. A friend knew of a horse that needed to find a home ASAP and thought that we might be interested. I delayed calling the owner for a few weeks (didn't want to pursue anything prior to leaving for our vacation - plus I have to admit that I get terribly anxious whenever we look at a potential horse!). I finally got up the nerve to call and after a nice conversation with the owner, wondered why I was so anxious. :) I started to get more excited about this mare as we talked; she has been ridden by beginners and her daughter for the past three years, and is generally a sweet, calm horse. Her name is Fancy Favory, but her barn name is Zoe, and she is a Lipizzaner-Arab cross. Sounds interesting, doesn't it? We made plans for us to come visit them that afternoon.
Fancy Favory, a.k.a. ZoeZoe was standing calmly tied when we arrived and didn't seem too concerned that all these strange people were swarming around her. Within minutes of our arrival, she let me pick up her feet and was happy to have the girls brushing her. Her owner demonstrated how well behaved she is while being sprayed and even during clipping. Her only real vice seems to be pinning her ears when you cinch her up - but she still stands still while you do it, so hey, I can live with that!
E took a short ride on Zoe and decided that she is almost as responsive as Monte - a high compliment from E! Zoe's first owner had used her as a dressage horse and traveled to competitions up and down the West coast. She hasn't used those skills in several years, but the potential is there.
After a short visit we decided to ask for a trial period - and her owner gave us a generous month to determine if this was the right horse for us.
Unloading Zoe at the barn...I picked Zoe up this morning (she loaded beautifully and stood quietly for the whole trip) and we brought her back to our barn. She'll be taking Monte's stall for the short term as the barn is pretty full at the moment. I'm sure he won't mind being relegated to the pasture full time. :)
Checking out the new pastures...Zoe was very nervous when we arrived, looking at everything and unsure about what was happening. She willingly followed us around the facility and into the run of the stall, but did not want to approach the stall itself. R tried luring her in with treats and hay for about 10 minutes, but Zoe just didn't want to set foot inside that scary, dark place! (Later in the afternoon, E was able to lead her in.)
R trying to lure Zoe into the stall...We made three trips to the barn today to make sure she was settling okay. On the third trip, E saddled Zoe up and had a quick easy ride on her in the round pen.
E says her trot is so smooth. (Anything is smooth compared to her pony, though!) Zoe is responsive, but does need more leg pressure to get moving. That may partly be because they haven't developed a rapport yet, however. After walking and trotting for about 10 minutes, she wanted Zoe to pick up her canter - and discovered that she couldn't get her to do it. After trying and trying for a minute or two, our barn manager suggested E use her inside leg to "hold up" Zoe's shoulder and then put pressure on the outside leg to ask for the canter. And that did the trick - Zoe immediately cantered a few strides.
As E was asking however, she did lower her head - E thought she was stumbling; C thought she was thinking about bucking. Both are totally plausible. I don't think much has been asked of Zoe for quite a while and I'm sure she wasn't too happy to be made to work. ;) It probably wasn't easy for her to give E the 15 minutes she asked for since she's really out of shape right now. At any rate, we'll keep an eye on this.
I'm so excited right now!
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