One Month!!!

I can't believe one month has gone by since we brought the mustangs home!! It has been a good month, and I am proud of the progress Baja has made. I am really ready to start putting in lots of riding miles, he is doing well with all of his groundwork and handling. This past week I have been working on riding, getting him used to carrying my weight and seeing me on top of him. He is really OK with the weight, he has just been very concerned with me being above him. So, I've been doing lots of up-high work around him, on the mounting block, walking back and forth on the arena wall while leading him, etc. He is finally getting better about it. I did alot of aside riding this week until he would walk calmly with me riding aside, both being led and alone. Last night I went astride and after a short fit, he settled down to being led with me astride.

We have also worked this week on standing tied (which he is OK with), picking up his feet (we have made progress with the fronts, still have work to do on the hinds), and he is good with hosing, grooming, fly spray, and brushing his tail. I also braided his mane and trimmed his bridle path. He seems to really enjoy being a more "domesticated" horse, he looks forward to feeding time, has been staying in a stall at night, and likes to "meet-and-greet" anyone who goes up to him. He is a very people-friendly horse. Today I had him out while there were alot of other people in the barn and he wanted to check everybody out. Then we walked out and did some obstacle work, he went over the bridge like a champ! He was a little worried about the plastic barrels, but he is so curious he gets over it quickly!

Here he is waiting to be let into the barn:



His feet are still pretty tender when he walks over the rocks. I am trying iodine on the bottoms for a couple of days and if that doesn't help, I may try a product called Sole-Guard which helps protect the bottom of the barefooted hoof.

I've tried to load some video, but the file is too large, so I'll keep posting pics unless I can figure out how to compress video.