We have... SADDDDDLLLLLE!!!!

Colts. They're schizophrenic. :-)

Quattro's mood when I got home tonight was a complete 180 from last night. Calm, happy, relaxed, cantered over to say howdy when he heard my car (that's SOOO nice - it's been years since I had a horse who did that. HRH Avery would not have so condescended in a MILLION YEARS - in my experience it's a rare TB who will, though I did have one who would!).

Q behaved himself admirably on his evening hand-graze - which is, though he is only vaguely aware of it, a schooling opportunity: grazing next to Scary Cows is always good; but tonight, taking advantage of recent rains, we worked on walking through puddles (Why? To get to the grass on the other side, of course!). Everything is less scary when they're eating.

...Which is why, once I had him in his stall, I decided the time was right to move the agenda up a hair.

Trying to decide when it's time to take the next step in a young horse's training is, I think, the hardest thing to try to explain to folks who haven't done it. (We've all seen the NH types who can't.) You just have to rely on observation of the horse's behavior, judging his mood accurately, knowing what he will do, won't do, might try, and might scare him.

I don't know how other AOTs do it, but the way I approach training is that I kinda-sorta have an agenda for the week of stuff I would *like* to get through - even if it's only endless repeats, like the last month of bridle-work inside the stall - but I'm totally willing to back up, throw the plan out, move forward ahead of schedule, all depending on WHETHER THE HORSE AND I ARE COMMUNICATING WELL OR NOT. I freely admit, sometimes we're not. If I'd tried this last night, it would have been a train wreck. He was antsy and my nerves were shot after the fall. That's when you leave it alone.

Tonight - different story. He was calm and relaxed, I was calm and relaxed; I had already done my usual routine of cleaning the stall around him while he ate his grain, knocking the mud off, picking up feet, messing with ears, dragging muck buckets in and out, filling hay bags, blah blah blah. So he was happily slobbering his way through his soaked alfalfa cube dessert and I thought, "You know what? Perfect night for the saddle."

I had planned to have a saddle on him by the END of the week. I've been longeing him with the side reins attached to the surcingle (to flap around miming stirrups and saddle skirts, NOT to be applied to the bit!) for a couple of weeks now, and he has no issue with that. There were some other things I wanted to work on first, but when opportunity bites you in the... NOSE... you go for it.

I didn't happen to have the training saddle I bought for him handy, so I went next door and grabbed my old Passier, which I was fairly sure would be his hunt seat saddle (and it will be - fits him fine. Gotta loff those old Kraut saddles, they fit almost everything!).

He barely even looked up when I brought it in - he's so used to me coming in and out of his stall with "stuff". Then he realized "Oh, wait, that's NEW stuff" and wandered over to check it out. I let him sniff it (and slobber green slime all over it, ewww). When it was no longer interesting, he went back to his food. I brought it over, showed it to him again - more slobber - rubbed it all over him, then set it gently down on his back. He took ONE sideways step and that was that. You could just see him thinking "Oh, OK, more Stupid Human Tricks. Well, it's not eating me... and I'm still hungry... Meh. Whatevs." Back to the food.

Because I'm an extra-careful sort, I had it on and off him several times, wiggled it, slid it around, then slid it partway off his back and let it drop to the ground (sooner or later, Dumb-Butt here is going to drop it; he may as well find that out now!). Lather, rinse, and repeat from the other side. By the end, he wasn't even lifting his head out of the bucket.

I intentionally didn't girth it up - that's not something I care to do with my horse at liberty in the stall. I just wanted to make sure he knows it's OK for the saddle to go on his back and get wiggled around and come off. He's got that now.

So there you have it. WE HAVE SADDLE! I'll try to get a pic of him in fully-decked out hunter finery this coming weekend.

The adventure continues!