Francie Goes For Broke

How about an update on Francie, our little rescue horse?  She certainly has come a long way since Thanksgiving.  I'd still like to see her put more weight on, and am hoping that as the grass gets more green with spring she will. 

I have been getting on Francie lately, after her lunging session.  She gets nervous.  All we do is walk around the arena slowly.  I do lots of reassuring.  This picture is from the third time I got on her.  She wasn't having the best day.  It was very windy, and she was all hormonal from her first heat cycle.  She had spazzed out a bit when I first tried to get on.  I backed off, reassured, calmed her down and tried again.  That's my approach to training.  Slow and steady.  There are other methods that are quicker, but this is what I prefer.  As we walked around the arena, I could sense that her every nerve was on edge.  Usually she calms down from my voice, but she didn't so much on this day.  I hoped that the neighbors wouldn't go flying by on motorcycles, as they tend to do sometimes; it wouldn't have had a good outcome.  Fortunately, they didn't.  I kept the lesson short, gave her lots of praise, and hopped down.  You can see me petting her neck in this picture.

I am tall, but even so, you can see how stunted her growth is.  She probably won't grow any more at this point, and will always be pony-sized.  My hopes for Francie are to get her solidly green broke over the summer, and then find a horse-crazy preteen girl in Pony Club or 4-H who would spoil her unconditionally and finish her training.  She has a sweet temperament, and I think she'd bond well with the right person.

Isn't it awesome to see how much she has progressed from the sick and unhandled horse she was last November?