It's Been A While...

Unfortunately, I had been living 1,000 miles away from my little guy, and my mother was having to do the dirty work for a little while. She worked with him a bunch, but knew better than to try anything too new with him without me here. Afterall, momma has to be here to ooh and aah and take pictures!

So, I missed out on quite some time in terms of blogging, but not too much new happened, except that he grew a WHOLE lot, moved to Florida, and isn't afraid of anything anymore. The next steps are perfecting lunging, and then starting to saddle up!!

Bathing

So, we have come to the summer season, where coffee becomes iced, windows get stuffed with air conditioners, and horses leave the pasture covered with grass stains and leaves and twigs as hair pieces. Duncan is becoming master trouble maker and somehow manages to look like he rolled in a mud puddle even if hes been in his stall the whole time. Typical baby!

Anyway, the summer is the perfect time for bathing. Also in the summer I get to live at home and not at school, so Duncan is 10 feet away at all times! This provides consecutive days and countless hours to spend with him. The first thing I decided to tackle was the bath. Though the wonderful people at Stage Rock spent tons of time with Duncan and even got him accustomed to things like the farrier and a clipper, they didn't have time to begin the bathing process. He was still very tiny last summer, so this is the summer for him to learn!

We tried for the first time before I had gotten home from school, and we took his babysitter horse (Bullet, my uncles horse) with him and tried to hose him behind the barn. First we would hose off Bullet so he could hear the noise and see the action of the hose on another horse. Horses are pack animals and do learn by watching. (Hence why people say cribbing is contagious, it is. Horses learn from eachother) He wasn't terrible but couldn't understand why he had to get all wet. We only spent a few minutes with him to avoid aggravation on either end. The picture above is actually from this day, the first time we introduced him. You can see my uncle and his horse Bullet, Duncan, and me spraying the hose.

Just a week or so ago, I started really working with Duncan and the hose. When I first started, I took him into the small indoor (which is about the size of a large round pen) had him on a leadrope and had someone else spraying the hose. He was running around me in circles and pushing me around, but I made sure the water stayed on him at all times. Its super important to show a horse that running around like that doesn't make the bad or scary thing stop. I needed him to realize that he was still getting wet no matter how fast he ran around me.

It did get a little bit tough to hold him though, and I was getting upset that he wouldn't stand even for a second. So, I let him go. I unclipped the leadrope from his halter and I let him just run around the indoor while I sprayed him with the hose. No matter where he ran, he was still getting hit with the water. Eventually, he realized that he wouldn't melt if he got wet, and he began to calm down. He would actually stop and just let the water hit him. When I put him back on the leadrope, however, he was still running around me in circles. I stopped him, and did some common ground work with him (my space is NOT your space type stuff) and then walked him into a corner. We turned the water on in the middle of the ring and let him listen while I rubbed his neck, and then we slowly brought the water to him. He stood like a champ! I let him be done for the day.

I followed basically the same routine for 3 consecutive days, each day held noticeable improvement, but he would still get frustrated and run around me in circles. I gave him one day off of the "water treatment" but continued the day after. That 5th day was a hugeee difference. I suppose giving him some time to think about it and realize he was still alive really helped him out. On the 5th day I hosed him by myself, with him on a lead (with slack!!) and just the hose. I didn't use the sprayer on that 5th day, so the sound of the sprayer wasn't there, but I will put it back on for the next time.

Allowing Duncan to realize that the hose wasn't something that was dangerous and wasn't something that would trap him helped in the long run. Letting him run around with the water spraying on him was a good way to show him that it wasn't some scary human thing. I am assuming it reminded him of the times in the field where the water fell from the sky onto him. Because that is a natural thing, it makes this new association with water less scary. He's come a long way with the water in just a week. I will definitely post an update.

A Bit of Background Info on the Boy

Duncan was born on April 16, 2009. (Which means hellloooo one year very sooon!) He was born in Wisconsin at Stage Rock Farms, owned and run by Edwin Pfaff and Brenda Sletten. The two of them had no idea when that baby was being born that they would soon become a blessing in my life. As I have previously mentioned, I'd been searching for the perfect baby for years and years. In any case, he is out of two beautiful horses. A gorgeous palomino stallion, Frenchmans Moonlite, and a beautiful palomino mare, SR Flitten Firewood (the picture above is of her with Duncan when he was just a few weeks). Frenchmans Moonlite is a son of the famous Barrel Racing stud Frenchmans Guy, and SR Fitten Firewood is a daughter to the great Fire Water Flit, also a Barrel Racing stud. Both Duncan's sire and dam are part of the Stage Rock Quarter Horse high quality performance breeding program. I couldn't have asked or a better facility to get a performance bred baby. He came to me in tip top shape, perfect weight, beautiful shiny coat, nice fluffy mane and tail. I couldn't have asked for a more handsome colt. Ed and Brenda put umpteen amounts of hours into each of their babies to ensure each baby lives up to is high quality breeding and that each person who purchases a baby gets exactly what they expect (which, with Stage Rock should be nothing short of the best). From the moment I started emailing them about Duncan, they were so entirely genuine and answered every last question I had (which is tough when it comes to me, because I ask question after question and questions about questions). They personally shipped Duncan for me, from Wisconsin to New York, and spent some time here at my farm. In the short time I spent with them, I felt as if I had literally grown up knowing them. They are truly genuine, amazing people.

When asked for a recommendation of a great barrel racing or performance quarter horse breeding facility, I would not even HESITATE to say Stage Rock Quarter Horses. My little Frenchman/Firewater colt is FLAWLESS. Ed and Brenda deserve a ton of credit for standing such gorgeous stallions and for having beautiful broodmares. I will include a link below to the Stage Rock website where you can view their palomino stallion (Duncans sire) Frenchmans Moonlite and their Royal Quick Dash stud, Frenchmans Royal CJ.

For the record, my mother is actually purchasing our 2nd Stage Rock foal from their crop of 2010 babies. In fact, there may be a 2nd AND a 3rd purchase this year.

Check out Stage Rock on their official site:
www.StageRockQuarterHorses.com

And on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Stage-Rock-Quarter-Horses/347081313783?ref=ts

The Beginning....

It all began this year on March 4. No no no, back up a few weeks. It began sometime around... HA! Who am I kidding... the first email was sent on February 13 2010. My mother had been web surfing, checking out some babies, and started to send me some well-bred weanlings and yearlings she happened to come by.
For a short while I was on a kick of searching for the perfect stud to breed my AQHA mare, Red Sports Model aka "Red", to, and I was pretty stuck on the Frenchman's line. It has been one of my favorites for years now, 4 maybe 5 years. I had ridden a Frenchman's Guy gelding when I lived in Florida and I loved him, loved his smooth transitions, smooth turns, and overall willingness to work and to learn. I guess she was searching for Frenchman's babies because of that when she discovered the little man that is now my Duncan.
She emailed Ed Pfaff of Stage Rock Quarter Horses, the farm he was born on, for more information, and she forwarded me the response which came with a bunch of pictures of the beautiful Red Dun Colt.

The emails didn't stop for quite a few days, my mom emailing Ed, me emailing Ed, my mom and I emailing each other.... This little colt, registered as SRFrenchmansdunfired was in Wisconsin, so if was to say Yes to buying him, it meant that I'd have to to it sight unseen.. so I studied the pictures and I sent a vet out to make sure he was perfect... and everything led to the only thing that was left to do... the check was sent and on March 4, 2010, my baby stepped off the trailer and onto the ground of his new home in New York.

And so, the story began.