Getting Started

Just a place to keep training logs and notes for the new girl, Pandora.

Initial assessment:

6 year old 15.2ish bay Appendix mare (unregistered, unfortunately).


Soft eye, intelligent and sensitive. Nicely muscled through shoulder and butt, but needs some weight on ribs and topline. A little nervous, but not spooky. Perfectly calm for grooming and tacking. A little squiggly in the cross ties, jumpy about hind feet but I bet that'll improve with consistent handling. Looks kinda funny right in front of the point of her croup -- have a feeling that has to do with musculature being underdeveloped because of the chiropractic issues.

Was worked by chiropractor approximately 1 month ago. Was severely out through hip, pulling spine off all up through withers. Jaw was out about 3/4 inch.

Went in a 5" single-jointed eggbutt snaffle, will switch her to a french link when she's home.

Stiff in the hind end, improves with warming up. Will work on slow conditioning, stretching & massage, and steady warmups to help her with this.


Currently on just grass hay, will start her on a little Strategy when she's home.

With previous owner (PO), story is that she randomly freaked out and reared up while hacking out at a horse trials. Subsequently she began rearing when PO attempted to mount. PO says unpredictable, puts her up on Dreamhorse; free to a good home (I believe) or she goes to OSU vet school for animal research for a term and then euthanasia. Seller says no no, I will take her, goes and picks her up; has chiropractic work done, teeth floated, feet trimmed; no issues for the 1 month Seller owns her.

Pandora was Eventing at Novice level. No idea how solidly, but she readily takes contact and stretches down on the flat. When she was shown to us, she was very calm to the fence, working out her own distances at the canter without panicking even from a long or short spot. No idea how much scope she has.

She wiggled around quite a bit for mounting when Seller mounted from the ground, but held quite still when Mom got a leg up from Dad -- suspect that mounting from the ground pulls on her back and hurts. Since we usually mount from a mounting block, shouldn't be a problem. Nevertheless, will be sure to establish politeness for mounting.


The Plan:

Bring her home, put in arena with McKinna for brief introductions, then put the two out with the Mare Herd. Put her on a pound or so of Strategy per day. Spend plenty of time grooming, fussing, and generally bonding; also take plenty of time to establish really solid ground manners now so it's not an issue later.

Start with short longeing sessions with lots of walk, a little trot, and maybe a bit of canter. Gradually build those up. Each day, spend at least 10 minutes massaging and stretching. Check tying ability; if impatient, tie her to the tie ring in the arena while McKinna is being worked and let her figure things out for herself.

Call chiropractor and find out when she'll need more work. Call farrier to let him know we have a second horse; check patience for standing and having hooves messed with. Slowly introduce riding work, short walks at first.

Work on desensitizing on the ground to build trust. Check calmness for bath, clippers, fly spray, rope swinging, tarps, ground driving. Round-pen to further establish bond and respect. Establish all in-hand skills: turns on forehand and haunches, back up, stop, trot, lead from off side, sidepass.

Train mane over to correct side and pull. Braid and bag tail.

And away we go :)