Busy busy busy

Bones is doing great on his trial. Both girls leasing him love him already. He is settling into the new barn seamlessly.

I rode him yesterday afternoon for the first time since the move. He was fantastic. We worked on transitions in general, walk to canter transitions in particular. He killed it on the left lead, but (as usual) had trouble on the right lead. I will be riding him once a week for the duration of the lease, just to make sure he doesn't get any bad habits or quirks under saddle. 

Being super cute while waiting on his wheels..

I've started Ginger back under saddle, now that the abscess has cleared up. She had about a month off.. she gained quite a bit of weight (which is a great thing) so she is feeling extra frisky. Turns out she is a 5 year old OTTB after all! On a trail ride a couple of days ago, she kept tossing her head around and throwing mini bucking fits. I hate that I don't have a nice arena to work her in.. I'm itching to get some arena work done! Which brings me to another topic.. (sort of?)..

A veterinarian in my area has been "rescuing" a lot of horses from a local auction that is known to have kill buyers. She currently has a surplus of rescue horses, and her trainer just quit. My friend is good friends with the vet, long story short.. I will be training these auction horses. Most of them are in poor condition and have very little to no training. My first three projects are a coming three year old Appaloosa filly (Callie), a 2 year old Appy gelding(Clay), and a weanling/yearling buckskin filly(Bambi). Callie was/is very shy and can be quite hard to get a halter on. She has a sweet personality and will be a nice mare once she learns to trust people and enjoy their company. So far I've just done very basic ground work with her; throwing a rope around her, light lunging, disengaging hindquarters, head down, etc. Clay is really small (I'm actually not quite convinced that he is a 2 year old) so I haven't pushed him very hard yet. He has a very sweet disposition but acts hard headed about certain things. I haven't worked with Bambi yet.. that comes tomorrow!

Anyways, the facility has nice indoor and outdoor arenas, and two nice barns. The last trainer did not take care of the place at all. It's such a shame, because it could be a beautiful farm. I will be cleaning and organizing some stuff in the next couple of days, but the majority of the stalls are despicable.. and that clean up job is not something I'm interested in. Once the place is in better shape, I may talk to the owner about bringing my horses there. If Bones's trial doesn't pan out I might actually bring him there for a lesson horse. Who knows.. I'm excited to see how this goes!!!

Here are a couple of random pictures of my hatchling Sulcata tortoise, Breeve.