On August 11th , 2016 I signed the paperwork on my new partner. Baby Zeke is a 16hh 2012 thoroughbred gelding whose JC name is Awesome Sting. He had 6 races and was off the track for 2 ½ months before he ended up with me!
Zeke was born down in Kentucky and raced all 6 of his races in Florida. His breeders knew he wasn't going to make it on the track as a stakes horse and sent him up to their other farm up in Toronto.
The last month has been full of getting to know each other but so far he is proving to be a smart (almost too smart ) baby.
September 10th was his first off property trip.
Aside from getting off the trailer and being a little wild it didn’t take him
long at all to settle. After a quick run I tacked him up and he went right to
work. Walk, trot, Canter both directions in a strange indoor. He also tackled
trotting poles and was introduced to riding in company (reeaaallly not sure
about that part... babies can't be perfect).
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| I'm obviously a perfect baby mom. Jeez. |
This past Saturday was lesson # 2. This week it took less
than 10 minutes to settle and get to work. We introduced small
lengethings at the trot, shortens at the trot and our first baby spirals (with some mixed results) Spirals to the left was awesome!! To the right... well...they need some work. Frustrating part
is when you have to admit that 90% of the problem is rider error…Novel idea right? If you ride
properly baby horses go nicely… get handsy instead of properly setting him up and ridig from my leg… not so nicely.
In the first month we’ve tackled:
- Trailer loading – first trailer look 20 minutes going there and over a half hour coming home.-----This took one evening to solidify the “get the hell on the trailer Zeke” now he walks on with a loose lead rope.
- Multiple trot poles in a row… nothing really noteworthy here. He just instantly figured it out.
- Popped over a little X a couple times (with some mixed reviews)
- Got his cribbing under control
- Started putting some weight on him
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| Zeke: Are you my mommy?! Max : Dear god get the baby away from me... |
Goals for the month!
- Spiral in left and right at least 1 revolution
- Lessen the amount of cutting in he does in the canter in both directions
- Manage 1 canter circle in each direction
- Start on canter poles
- Solidify getting him to stretch under saddle (this we’ve already made progress on)
- Continue to build muscle and weight
- Standing at the mounting block when I get on (this is already pretty good but he still wants to take a step or 2 after I get on)
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