You might be wondering what’s going on with my new mare Bluebird. I got her in April, after my sister in Idaho called and asked if I’d like to have her, and we had her shipped all the way to Iowa. She has fit in well with our other four horses, but summer was busy and she was underweight and I just didn’t find the time to work with her at all. She’s five years old, and still not broke, but I was mostly concerned with putting weight back on her. But I have been feeling bad about letting her go so long without training.
Somewhere along in August I had my suspicions, and by September I was certain that we have another baby on the way. So after the initial shock and dismay (no horse training until next June!) we are excited to think of another little person joining our family in May. The plans for riding colts went out the window, however, and I started looking for someone to train Bluebird and our three-year-old gelding, Cletus.
After going to the Kip Fladland clinic in September, I had to admit we couldn’t afford to send Bluebird there. I would love to have a horse trained by Kip, but it just isn’t in the foreseeable future, financially. I had a few other local trainers recommended to me by others, but I’d never heard of them and just didn’t feel like calling them out of the blue.
So my husband and brother-in-law went out to South Dakota last weekend, where we lease pasture on the Indian Reservation for summer grazing for our cattle. They sorted off the calves they wanted to sell, and Roger, the guy who we have the lease with, and his girlfriend Tiffany were working the cattle on horseback. The guys were really impressed with their horsemanship, and I guess they got to talking horses, and Tiffany offered to train our horses for us. My husband told her he’d pay her twice what she quoted him, and even that is cheap. She said she just really enjoys riding horses, and that she’s been really successful with the ones she’s trained for friends.
We sold the calves at the Valentine Livestock Auction the next day, and were pretty much blown away at the prices they sold for! It was a good year to be selling calves. The cows and a few calves we kept back for replacements are still on the reservation, waiting to come home to the farm to graze cornstalks all winter.
So we have a trip planned for next week to bring the cows home, and since a stock trailer has to go out anyway, to help haul cattle home (most of them travel on a semi truck, but we’ll need the trailer as well), then it just makes sense to haul Bluebird and Cletus out there.
The vet came out yesterday to get a Coggins test on Cletus (Bluebird’s is still valid) and health certificates for both of them so they can travel over state lines. We had called Kevin Wescott, our horse trainer friend from Nebraska, who is also a friend of Roger and Tiffany (Kevin is the connection that enabled us to find land for lease out in South Dakota in the first place), and asked if he would recommend them as horse trainers, and he said that he had sent a pony to them for training, and they had also ridden another of his horses, and he thought they would do a good job with ours. So we’re excited about the opportunity!
I think they’ll be out there at least a month, maybe more. I don’t have unrealistic expectations that they’ll be completely trained when they come back. But they will be far and away beyond the realm that I could take them myself, and much more affordable than any trainer we could hire around here. I think that if they have a good start, I can take back up training with them in the summer, and maybe my husband will work them a little in between.
He and I were talking about the colts’ temperaments. I had washed their legs off yesterday before the vet inspection (it’s been a wet fall here, and their pen is still muddy), and I described their reactions to having the garden hose spraying at them for the first time ever. Bluebird stood there and grazed grass, as if to say, “I’ve had a bath every day of my life, this is no big deal.” Cletus snorted, pranced, danced around, and acted like the water was a personal attack on his dignity! They are completely different. Bluebird is tall and streamlined, and while she may have speed I don’t think her agility will be comparable to Cletus’. He is short, round, muscled, and lively—I think he might make a good little cow horse if he ever gets the chance!
We’ll see what comes of their adventure out West. I’m excited to get to make the trip this time, and it’s fun to be traveling with horses. I hope it all goes smoothly, and I’ll keep on blogging updates as well as I can.
