Greta

We picked an 8 year old halflinger mare named Greta from a friend last week. She was free and we couldn’t resist. She had been in a pasture with his devon bulls. One could approach her, but as soon as she saw a halter she would tare off in the opposite direction. We were able to get her in a corral, halter and load her without too much issue.

She is sound, fat and very drafty. We set up a round pen made of net fence and have been working her in that. We worked a lot with our team in a round pen when we first got them and it is interesting and fun to experience another horse in this setting. After 20 minutes a day in the pen, she is turning well (toward us, not away), and accepting a halter readily. She has the bad habit of walking slightly behind me when led. To remedy that, I cut a long birch sapling which I hold in my left hand while leading with the right. The sweeping motion of the sapling behind her is enough to get her going. She also hates walking through mud. Sapling therapy also helped with that.

Kristan rode her in the round pen on Sunday and then my daughter Zoe, myself, and a farm intern all hopped on (separately) for a ride. Zoe and Kristan have had several successful rides since venturing outside the pen.

Yesterday, we trimmed her feat. She was pretty good picking up her front feet, but did a lot of leaning. She outright refused to let us trim her back feet. I put her back in the round pen for several laps and turns and returned to her rear feet. She let me pick it up and then stomped it down. More laps. We repeated this several times. As the sweat accumulated, she became much more open to getting her rear feet trimmed. We got them rear feet trimmed inside 40 minutes with this routine. Best of all, she made the decision to pick up her feet (rather than trotting laps) – no coercion. Can you tell I love the round pen?

We are going to borrow a harness from a friend and give it a try using a combination of approaches espoused by L Miller and Doc Hammill in the venue of the round pen to start. I will try to keep you posted on her progress. Has anyone worked a halflinger or smaller horse with a full size team? Are longer trace chains needed?

George