Our first day-We picked up a buckskin filly from Southwest Stallion Station in Elgin, Texas as our first attempt to train a wild mustang. The excitement of seeing our new ‘baby’ was soon over-ridden by panic as we saw the pandemonium that ensued every time one of the yearlings was loaded into a trailer. As they loaded my new project, she immediately begin turning in circles, banging her head on and into the trailer. At one point, she stuck her mouth out of the front window of the trailer as if she would eat her way out. At this time, I noticed all of the blood running down her forehead and I was thankful I told the loaders not to put a halter on her. I could just picture her getting it caught on something. There was nothing we could do but drive as quickly as possible towards home and pray she didn’t do anything else to hurt herself. When we unloaded her at her new home, we saw her cuts were only cosmetic and she was actually a lot calmer by then. In her new stall, she stuck her head and neck through the iron bars and appeared to try to push her way out and when that failed, to ultimately jump through. And she would have if her body would have fit through them! She was circling and wanted so badly to be with the other horses, so I moved my quiet appaloosa into the stall caddy-corner. This helped her calm down. I watched and waited. She did not want to come anywhere near me, but would have to if she wanted to drink. I could tell she was thirsty, but very suspicious. It took her about an hour and then she did a ‘drive-by’ and dunked her whole head in the water bucket. When we finished laughing at her, my husband named her ‘Shelby’ for the mustang car.

Aug. 1st-This experience of working with a mustang yearling has taught me so much. Shelby likes to play games with me, but I'm all business, so every once in a while she reminds me that she is still a youngster and it's okay to play. For the first time, I'm playing with a horse instead of training all the time. I have definitely learned to be more patient and not try to hurry things along. When she gets frustrated, she is very clear with her signals and I have to stop and ask myself what I am doing wrong, not what she is doing wrong. I don't know how we'll do in the competition, I only know that we are both learning how to do different things. I will definitely use what I have learned from Shelby in my future training on other horses!

Aug. 5th - Sometimes God has a way of telling us to slow down when we won't listen to ourselves. Yesterday, I took a misstep and severely re-sprained an ankle that was already weakened from a bad horse spill I took last Oct. I had gotten on a student's horse to correct his bad behavior and he pitched me off. I got back on him immediately, but before I could get myself down in the saddle, he sent me skywards. My students said I didn't bounce at all and made a really awful sound when I hit the ground. I would have gotten back on him if I wasn't in so much pain. I thought I had a broken pelvis. Fortunately, it wasn't broken, but during my recuperation, I completely ignored the sprained ankles. So now I have a weak right ankle and I'm stuck in the house (husband's orders!) with my leg in a weird boot and nothing to do but post to this blog. I can't begin to tell you how much I miss Shelby...and I just saw her yesterday! My husband played lots of sports and he is determined to get me up and 'running' asap, so I have to listen to him. Buckets of ice water, lots of ibuprofen and no pain killers. I'm getting back to the barn in record time, if he has his way. Shelby will just have to miss me, too!