The First Full Month With Padmé

     In June of 2020, I began to get back into the world of horseback riding by going on weekly trail rides with my aunt after several years of being absent from the saddle, and it reawoke a desire within me to learn how to train a young horse from scratch. I have always had a longing to develop a relationship with a horse that will allow me to take them into the wilderness trails that crisscross the United States, especially the National Parks that preserve pockets of wilderness. After speaking with my aunt, I began to casually browse for a horse that might be a good fit for me, and that is when a rescue from Valley Center, California, Falcon Ridge, posted a few photographs of a beautiful bay Morgan/Friesian filly turning four this year, and she took my breath away. I had to set up an appointment to meet her and see if she could possibly be my perfect fit. I adopted Padmé at the end of June 2020 after a meeting that left my aunt and I convinced that this little mare definitely had to come home with us. 

Being released after a morning lunging session.

      Once Padmé was settled into her new pen and acquainted with her new neighbor Nono, I set to work on her training. The rescue informed us that she was only halter broken, trailered just fine (we found this to be true after a wonderfully boring trip home), and took well to new experiences. After being armed with this information, my aunt and I formulated a plan to begin her training with the basics of grooming and touching. The brushing was easy, and she quickly learned that she enjoys being groomed, and even took to having her mane and tail combed, but she was not comfortable having her legs touched. The big goal for her first week was to be able to touch her legs, this took about twenty minutes. 

    Since Padmé was such a good girl with the touching, I was able to move on to picking up her feet in preparation for using the hoof pick and eventually being seen by the farrier. I decided to begin with her front feet, and this was met with a temper tantrum complete with pawing and attempts at nipping. Despite this brattiness, we altered our set up and eventually worked through the attitude, and after about two weeks she began to pick up her feet with little to no problems. This last week, I was even able to begin to use the hoof pick on her front feet during our daily grooming routines. We are currently working on picking up her back feet with gentle pressure from a cotton lead and then using my hand, but this process is still new so we are working on desensitizing and working through general brattiness.

     Grooming and touching, however, are not the only things we have been working on during this month of training, we are also heading down the path that will eventually lead to riding. Over this last month, Padmé has been learning how to lunge and understand her verbal cues for changing gaits. At the time I am writing this, she walks off nicely, is solid on the “trot” command, is fairly solid on “whoa”, and beginning to pick up on what “canter” means. Over the last couple of weeks, we have been working with a surcingle, and from the first moment, Padmé acted like it was no big deal lunging with it like a dream and not even batting an eye when we added a thin pad. 

     Since she is doing so well, we are moving on to dragging lines this week, and I am looking forward to what the future has in store for me and this wonderful little mare.

First time with the surcingle.