A Very Exspensive Day

May 27

This morning started out wonderful, I worked with the Mustang and lead her into a stall for the first time and she walked down the barn hall past other horses into her stall like she had lived in a barn her whole life.

I then went to visit another horse trainer. When I got on the property I knew I was there to help him start a few young colts. Starting and foundation is my area of expertise. the trainer brought out a 3 yr old that had a few rides on him already.
I was asked to ride the horse. I asked the trainer what kind of ground work he had done with the horse. It was as though I had insulted the guy. He told me to not worry about the ground work, that the colt had plenty of rides, just get on.
The next thing I know I'm in an ambulance being taken to the hospital. I'm in severe pain in my leg and so mad that I had not listened to my gut feelings about the ground work. If I had taken the time to move the horses hindquarters, shoulders, toss ropes on him and back him a little on the ground before I got on I would have avoided the whole thing. The worst part is I know better, oh boy do I know better!
If you can't control the horse from the ground, chances are once your in the saddle it won't get any better. So as I was about to hit the ground hard. The only words I could hear going through my brain was Clinton Anderson saying," You should of done your ground work".!!! By then, it was to late. I thought about wether or not to post this because I don't want to take away from such a great journey of training a Mustang, but as a professional I felt that I had to. If this can help just one person than I have done my job. If someone ever asked you to get on a horse and will not allow you the time to get to know the horse or do ground work with the horse, simply just walk away. A professional horsemen or women will allow you to get to know your mount before they demand that you get on.

Another reason I posted this was to explain why the next pics and videos will seem out of order. It is because while I was in terrible pain and still training the Mustang, I did not allow anyone to film it. So again, I should of done ground work, if I had, you would of been able to see some pretty important steps in training a horse.