Jasper greeting me at the gate
Jasper is settling in. And after barely sleeping and stressing and one trip to the chiro for a pinched nerve in my back, I’m ok now too!
When we went out to visit him, he was still pretty nervous. He was very glad to see me, though. I was planning to take him for a walk but I thought he was a little to spooky for me to handle so I kept him around his stall. There are already people feeding him cookies!!
At that point I thought it was going to take awhile for him to get comfortable. But the trainer worked with him all last week and by the time I went there on Friday to watch her work with him he had settled down considerably, I was amazed. She’s been turning him out every day and she told me that he tries to get any horse turned out in the paddock beside him to play with him. He was turned out when I arrived and sure enough, a horse was just being turned out beside him and he popped his head over to say hello to him. He’s made a friend with the trainers horse, she says they play all morning so she tries to turn them out beside each other.
Looking for a friend
He was pretty relaxed when I was grooming him and MUCH calmer than earlier in the week, thank goodness.The trainer had walked him around the facility quite a bit getting him used to everything and besides shying at some things he’s been pretty good. She’s been working with him in the round pen, then the small indoor arena, then moving up to the large circular outdoor arena, I had told her he gets difficult in a larger space. She said he was doing fine, I’ve done great groundwork with him, he definitely knows whoa, she was bridling him no problem.In the round pen
Well, on Friday he decided to be a bit of a pisser, of course when I was watching! It was good to see how the trainer handled it, though. He was doing great in the round pen and she moved him to the circular outdoor arena. He was doing fine up until someone decided to work a horse right beside the arena and I think it scared him or he just decided to take off, but he revved up his engines and I swear he did about 5 loops galloping around the arena, calling out to every horse in the
In the round pen
facility! Well, we knew he would run out of gas eventually, and he did, he stopped and faced the trainer and snorted as if to say, I am DONE now. And then, being Jasper, he was all kind of sorry looking about the whole incident. This was the first time he had taken off like this, the trainer says ‘wow, he seems kind of lazy at times when I work him, but he really goes when he wants to’ Yep, and THAT is why you’re riding him before me – lol. She worked him a little longer just to let him know if he does that, he still has to work, and he was fine even in the area that he spooked so it ended on a good note. But was he tired! I just kind of chuckled and said to him ‘bud, you’re in boot camp now!’
So he has already reached the point of testing the trainer – she knows it isn’t going to be a total cake walk. But I think she’ll do fine with him. She said when we were putting him away ‘you know, he’s very smart…almost TOO smart’. WOW, only said that a MILLION TIMES!
