horses are herd animals....

I had one hesitation in putting Nina at this new barn. The horses went out to pasture in mixed herds. I knew that she had been beaten up by the small herd of mares she lived with before I bought her. What I didn't know was what brought that on. It is not always the submissive one that gets beat up. Sometimes it is an instigator that starts fights he/she can't finish.

I needn't have worried. Nina integrated into the herd immediately, had two new best friends and an ardent admirer within a couple of days. In fact she was so attached to her new best friends that she was difficult to handle. Herd bound, screaming, pacing and rude and not eating well. She was too concerned with keeping track of everyone. Eventually she realized that going out with her new friends was routine and she calmed down.

Riding her only infrequently I was glad to see that she picked up right where we had left off in her training, also in her pissy attitude, which was diminished but not gone.

wow, what a lot has happened since I last posted....

Probably the biggest thing is that I moved Nina to a hunter/jumper barn with real turnout...real pasture...small herd...in at night.

I took some students to schooling shows at a small hunter/jumper barn last spring. It was an old, rundown barn with nice well established pastures that had recently been taken over by a trainer new to the area who was fixing it up a little at a time.

I had it in the back of my mind as a possible place for Nina, but I wanted to see how it progressed before I leaped in. Shortly after my last posting I reserved a stall for her and moved her in mid November.

I am a big believer in turnout for horses, and not dry lot or single turnout, but real turnout with pasture to graze and other horses to socialize with. There are risks involved, but the benefits well outweigh the risks, in my opinion.

So I moved her.....more later.