5th Ride

I took my 5th ride on Blossom today and she did really good. She has decided that she is already bored with her finals routine and would prefer riding around in the arena. She is a silly, silly Mustang. The hardest part about training Blossom has been to keep her from getting bored. She is so smart. I think she does things wrong sometimes just to mix things up.



Well another good day training. No set backs...... Have a great day!

I thought this video of a trainer on his extreme mustang says it all ! So I posted it.
It is so beautiful you may cry......

Back To Training

Things are getting back to normal and I have started training again. I found all my props that had floated away and set everything back up. BLASTED my music and commenced to fine tuning my finals performance should we get picked. It is a cool performance....fast, light and fun. So I'm ready for that if we do well in the in hand course. I set up a in-hand course very similar to past challenges courses and Blossom is doing pretty good. We need to work on less hindquarter movement in the L as we make our turn..other than that, we have a pretty good chance. Well that is if they are just judging the horses and it's not all about showmanship and bling because I look down sometimes and at my horse and I don't always stand " all perched-up" that's what I call that little pose.

I did go to the other arena to check it out after the storm and see if it would be a good place to continue starting Blossom. Suddenly to my suprise,I was stopped by the Gestapo! Apparently their was no room in the park because all the horses that lost their barns during the storm had been moved there.
I tried to explain to the guy that I just wanted to use the public arena like I've been doing for years. He said they had a problem with people coming in and riding the horses that were in the evacuation barn. I told him I had my own horse to ride and I just wanted to use the arena, which by the way was empty and not even close to the 3 barns of evac horses. But this guy was just not having it. I'm not sure who the heck he was either, I asked him if he was a new park ranger. (I know all of them)
Oh well, some folks are grumpy.....I'll try another time...maybe tomorrow he will have resigned from his post and if not, that's Ok, I know she will make a good riding horse one day and I'm not required to ride in the competition anyway.

Clean-Up

Clean up from the storm has been long and tedious. So much to clean...One gal at the barn lost her home to flooding. She is one strong cookie though, just kinda taking things in stride. I invited her to go to Fort Worth with us. I know she will love it. She is a trainer and very good with horses. She is now saying that in the midst of everything she just does not see how she will get away. I hope she has a change of heart, she would be a great person to have on my BLOSSOM team. I won't have any idea what to do when I get there, I will need some extra hands and eyes and an information informant. LOL

No training, yet! Well, I did go on a little trail ride. Yahoo! It did wonders for my soul.

Thank-You God!

God I have trusted in you since I was a small child. You knew then that one day you would place a Wild Mustang in my care. You have blessed my journey so much. When I got hurt from riding someone else's horse and was broken hearted because I thought that I ruined my chances of training a wild Mustang, I prayed and trusted in you and you gave me a Mustang with a gentle spirit. When I later realized that I would have no income during the summer because of my injury, I prayed and you sent good people my way that helped without blinking an eye, When it rained and rained and I thought my training would never get underway you always left some sunshine in the day so that I could spend time with the Mustang. When the tropical storm came and everything flooded, I prayed my horses would stay safe and they did. You are an AWESOME GOD! Thank you for not letting me break my leg, thank you for sending Mona Webb and all her fundraiser ideas my way, thank you for Blossom and her gentle spirit, thank you for letting the water recede, thank you for the days of sunshine and for my sister who has always been positive and supportive about my horse crazy ideas and lifestyle. When I asked her to drive all the way to Texas with me to pick up a wild Mustang, you had the perfect words flow out of her mouth. "Your getting a wild Mustang?, when do we leave to pick it up?"

As the time draws near and all the trainers will come together for one cause, the American Mustang, please continue to bless our journeys, heal our bodies, give us patience and sound horses with gentle spirits.

Amen

Storm Update and Horses

The new horse (Sport) has a dry stall and is fine. He has settled in and now does not care much about the wind and rain.

Blossoms stall is very wet and mushy. I will see how well Mustangs feet hold up after this all finally passes. She has been in continual rain almost everyday if not every other day since I picked her up in Texas in May, so her feet should be used to it. And by the way, her feet have always looked great, they were great when I picked her up from the holding facility.

I decided to clean up in the pouring rain even though it's flooding in and she has a dry stall for now.

Weather Is Better

I think the worst part of the storm is over. It is possible that as it moves north that we get more rain from the outer ban. For now Blossom and the new horse are dry in their stalls. We moved them yesterday during the storm and threw storm waters to two separate barns but both are on the same property. I had forgotten about the abandoned barn at the end of the property we checked it out and it was dry. It was sunny for about 1 hour today and I was able to turn them out. The new horse was a little big eyed and snorting and walking really cautious. Blossom did not care about any of it. She marched through the water and was light, soft and responsive as I was leading her after having been in her stall since early Monday afternoon. Man, I love that Mustang! I don't know if it's all the hours I have put into her or just her breed but she really is a good girl. I think it's the breed!

At this point Blossom has done just about everything a horse can do in less than 100 days. However we have not had buffalo to chase! I'm still going to take her to the beach. (I hope)

Until later........

My Neighborhood & Barn

Update On Storm

I wish I could say it's 70 degrees and sunny in Florida. But it's flooding badly on the east coast and guess where I live? Some of my friends at the barn homes are flooding, I have been lucky so far, just a little bit of wet by the patio doors, but it's coming!

The horse's are standing in water, the barn has flooded and other horse owners have stopped by looking for drier ground for their supplies and horses. I hate to turn people down but really we don't have any available stalls and we are flooded too!

I will have to put training on the back burner even when it dries out around here because the horse community will need help getting put back together. I saw my neighbor stalled in the road as I was coming back from the barn and I pulled him to his house with my jeep. Then some guys came by and said there house was flooding and they couldn't get sandbags because of some county thing. Since my house is not flooding and I can get sand bags I called the city to have some delivered for the guys. A little while later I saw a city truck with sand bags drive by so I ran out the front door and out into the river but the sands bags weren't for me. Apparently I will see trucks all day long delivering sand bags and that I am on the list, but there is no need to stop every truck. Hehehe. The driver and I laughed about me chasing down the truck. You have to have a sense of humor about things and pray a lot. Makes life better.....

Tropical Storm

Well, tropical storm Fay has changed my plans a little this week. For one thing the kids just got back in school yesterday and now school is canceled for the next two days. Kids are happy!

Blossom was acting strange last night. I got a call from the barn and they said Blossom was laying down and would not get up. I panicked! Drove as fast as I could, when I got there, they had her up and in the isle of the barn. She did not neigh when I arrived, which is unusual and she was grumpy, which was unusual. I approached her, listened to her stomach and took her for a walk. It was not colic. (Praise God) but something was going on. Apparently she was going into a really bad heat cycle.

Sometimes young horses can have a difficult time with their first few cycles. Ok, well I can accept that, but that means her next one will be in Texas. So sorry all you trainers sporting good looking geldings, I will be bringing a sweet distraction to the event.

I did get a chance to ride her yesterday morning before the rain came and she is doing really good. But it is hard to stay out of her mouth when I ride because someone built the round pen with the posts to the inside by the two gate entrances and the arena is the same way.

I got tired of my knees and legs hitting the fence and began steering a little.
She is really light in the mouth and I would like to keep it that way. I want to start her right, so I will trailer her to a local arena where she does not have to worry about anything but moving those feet!

I have to go feed the horses! Have a good day!

Byrds Western Wear

Update

Well, it has been a good summer for the kids, however the little monkeys start school today and all I can say is hip, hip hooray!

The car wash went really well.
Blossom was a little bit pushy though. She would search people's pockets and take hats off and put just about anything she could in her mouth. I'm not sure why she waited so long to show this new enthusiasm for new things. I think maybe she is getting to much attention at the barn when I'm not around. It's like she is looking for treats. Other than that, she was an angel. I will post pic's soon.

I would like to say that I am this awesome trainer and look what I've done with a wild Mustang, but the Truth is, Blossom was just cool, calm and collected when I started working with her. I just got blessed, I prayed for a gentle spirited horse and that is what God gave me, a gentle spirited horse. Is this horse perfect? Of course not, she will test you. Is she silly? Yes, and she is very vocal. She talks a lot. Not with other horses or when we go to new places, but she talks to me. She neighs, sighs, nickers and just has to be involved with everything I do at the barn. I got a new horse in for training, well actually he's in for a tune-up. Anyways, Blossom is jealous of me working with Sport. It has always been just me and her. Now she has to share and she's not real happy about that. She still listens and waits for direction, but she is concerned about the new horse that now gets my attention when I'm on the property.

3rd Ride

I took my third ride today on Blossom. She is going smoothly at a walk in both directions. Just squeeze, cluck and spank. She starts her walk at cluck and hopefully soon I will only have to squeeze. I felt like she was settled and I almost went for the trot but a thunderstorm rolled in fast and I thought to just end it on a good note. I will ride again later and maybe then we can go a little faster than a walk.

This afternoon I did try to trot and she would not stay in the trot. I will have someone flag us for extra forward movement. That should work until she gets the concept better.

The radio station gig this morning was a lot of fun, I was able to plug a lot about the Mustang Heritage Foundation and the Makeover in Texas. People in Brevard county are learning about these beautiful animals and the heritage they represent.

Pictures of Blossom have the wrong dates on them, I have two little monkeys that
sabatage things and I can't fix the date.

Radio Station

Good day...I will be on Melbourne's WIXC 1060 AM with Ted Turner this morning from 8-9 promoting Wild Mustangs and the Texas event. When I get back I am going to take my third ride.

WHERE DID THAT WILD MUSTANG GO?

Blossom is that you?

2nd Ride

First Ride

This was the first time I used a saddle, I was just getting on and off bareback and sometimes I would sit bareback for a few minutes, but we never went anywhere.

Health Certificate

I had the vet come out and do a health certificate on Blossom this morning. Blossom did not like us sticking the thermo to her so we went by the BLM's papers and the over all appearence to state the horse was healthy. Also, the vet did a run down for me on Blossoms teeth and guess what? It's time to ride, the vet says" Joan, this is not a yearling, she is three and then showed me step by step with the teeth thing. Wow, no more excuses not to ride her, look forward to pictures of our first ride.

Byrds Western Wear Fundraiser

On August 16 we will be having a fundraiser at Byrd's Western Wear, off 192 in West Melbourne. Stop by and say Howdy, get your car washed, grab a bite to eat and meet Blossom, the once wild Nevada Mustang. Bring the whole family and learn about our Mustang Heritage.



The fundraiser is from 9am to 1pm.

Blossoms Day Off

This is what Blossom does on her day's off! The other horse that looks like Blossom is also Mustang and look at what a good boy he is. That little girl (5) canters that horse all over the place.

Getting On, Getting Off

Today was rainy and muddy in most areas of the barn. So, I decided today would be a good day to get on Blossom. If she bucked, then I would just land in mud.
I got on and off bareback tons of times and she did not move around. She was very good. Unfortunately for me, I was unable to actually ride her around because of a horse related injury to my leg in June. No, it was not from my Mustang.. It just shows what a great horse Blossom is. I was able to train her with an almost broken leg. If your new to my blog, go back to the beginning and you can see that the inside of my thigh looks the size of a football. The accident tore all my muscle and veins right down to the bone. Ooch, hurts think-in bout it!!:) For now, I will just keep getting on and off her. Maybe in a few days, I will take a leap of faith and ride into the sunset, or atleast not into the fence. I can barely sleep at night thinking about riding that MUSTANG! It's so exciting. I absolutely adore that yearling (well 3 yr old).

Thanks for stopping by...................

Orange Blossom

In hindsight I should of called Blossom, Awesome Blossom because that is what she is.
Florida has finally dried up from June and July's rain and I have been able to get down to some serious training. Blossom does obstacle courses (no fear), round pens, lunges, pivots, yields, moves away from pressure nicely, she is bendy and soft. She is so ready to start under saddle, I want to ride her. I'm afraid if I take that first ride then I will definitely not want to let her go. Blossom is one of the most personable horses that I have ever worked with. She loves to hear her name, she comes running and neighing when you call her, she loves to go places (and she's gone to a lot of places in less than 70 days) , she knows when it's time to rest or work. All this and she is only around 2. The deadline to decide if you want to keep your yearling is Sept 1st and it is coming up fast.

We are going to a barrel racing event and that should be real good for her.
She has never seen barrel racing and the way horses act at the gate. Knowing her she won't care.

Mustangs Rock!! Seriously, if your looking for a good versatile horse, get yourself a well trained mustang, visit Mustang Heritage Foundation for tons of Mustang info.

Mounted Shooting

Wow, What a great weekend Blossom and I had. Today we did cowboy mounted shooting. Well, actually we watched. I had a guy lean over Blossom and shoot his gun off her back. Blossom did not flinch, even with a stranger handling her. Blossom knows how to sort things out and has a long attention span. I think she could go in any direction. I've done a lot of things with this Mustang and she's awesome.
She gets better and better everyday! She's got a great foundation and ready for that first ride. I hope whoever adopts her, treats her right and appreciates this horses true grit. I do!


If your interested in getting a good horse I suggest you go to the Extreme Mustang Makeover in Forth Worth, TX there will be hundreds of well trained Mustangs there or go to Mustangheritagefoundation.com. The Foundation has a trainer program. They can find a Mustang trainer and Mustang near you.

Tractor Supply Carwash

Thank you Tractor Supply and everyone who worked so hard and made this such a cool event. People got to learn about Mustangs, touch a mustang, The Mustang Heritage Foundation and see how great Mustangs are. Here are some pics of the day, as you can see everyone worked very hard!! Thank You!!!!!