The Halflinger and the Thing: Part 1

I am going to be a busy girl this spring.

In addition to Hampton, I now have 2 additional creatures to work with.

The first guy is named Zippy.

Don't laugh.

A halter champion he is not.

The BO purchased Zippy to be a therapy horse (she runs a therapeutic riding program as well as the boarding portion of her barn). He is 4 years old. No one will be able to guess his breeding so I'll just tell you. Arabian. Belgian. Appaloosa. Yeah. You read that correctly. Anyway, she needed a horse that would be capable of carrying some of the heavier riders.

Zippy accepts a rider on his back. But that's about the extent of his training. I worked with him for the first time yesterday and it took me 5 minutes to even get him to lead out of the barn. He just kept backing up. Um, ok. Then he shied and ran into me. Not allowed. So after a few minutes of explaining to him what leading is ... he decided to walk nicely by my side to the big outdoor ring.

I introduced lunging to him - which he picked up quite easily. This surprised me considering he really wasn't even halter broke by my standards. Then I got on. He stood nicely to be mounted so someone obviously did a good job on that. But that's about all he knows. Steering? D+. Whoa? B+. Go? D+. Although I must say that he did learn that legs=go now without an issue. I didn't even have to smack him with the whip - just a tap tap did the trick and soon he was moving off with light leg pressure. So he's a sensitive feller and really quiet for how green he is. We just worked on steering and walk trot transitions with some whoas thrown in there. He's like riding a young horse on its 2nd or 3rd ride ever. He's clueless, but willing and not silly.

So I'm getting some extra cash for putting miles on him. This really helps me out with finances and Zippy will learn what life is like as a working horse.

The other project - the awesome Halfinger arrives next week. More on him soon! To be continued ...