Getting Started on Missy

What an exciting day!

I have been waiting to get started with Missy’s saddle training for a couple years now. Just had to get some other horses done and sold before I could get to her. I wanted to be able to take some time with her. She doesn’t need just a tune-up. She’s going to need training from the ground up.

Missy is a registered Missouri Fox Trotter mare owned by Derek Habel. Her registered name is Yankee’s Angel Girl (07-94281, blue-papered), born 05/22/2007, making her 13 years old next month. I didn’t know her registered name for a few months after I started working with her, so I started calling her Missy and it stuck. She was a brood mare on a ranch in Idaho for her first ten years. I became acquainted with her in 2017 on a horse pack trip to the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana. After that trip, I started her under saddle, but just haven’t been able to get back to her until now. You can read about my previous work with her here.

Missy is a beautiful sorrel and white tobiano pinto with nice markings and a shine like a new copper penny. She has perfect Fox Trotter conformation, tall, with slim legs and strong hooves. She is absolutely sound, has a good mind, and a calm disposition. She loves people and is easy to catch and halter. Right now she is a bit herd-bound, as she has been running free on a mountainside with about 10-12 other horses for the past three years. That is something we’ll have to work through.

Today’s ride was Missy’s seventh time under saddle. I rode her in a small arena three times in 2017, then the owner tried her under saddle once on a hunt in 2018, where he had her as a pack horse. I have ridden her twice on short training rides last year, and finally got back to her today.

Missy has been used a number of times as a pack horse on extended hunt and pack trips, so she has some excellent trail experience. However, trail experience under pack, following other horses on a lead rope, is vastly different than doing the same thing under saddle in the lead. So, I’ll be starting Missy from scratch as a saddle horse.

Missy will stand to be groomed, have her hooves checked and cleaned, and she stands well for the farrier. She also stands well to be saddled and unsaddled, mounted and dismounted. However, when I put the crupper under her tail, she didn’t like that at all. I decided to work her a little on a longe line in a round pen to let her work through it. She clamped her tail and even tried to buck it out a time or two, but after a few minutes she relaxed and quit worrying about it. I decided, however, to remove the crupper before I got on her back. I wanted to reduce the stress as much as possible and didn’t want that extra distraction.

I started Missy under a braided rawhide bosal with a horse hair mecate and will keep her in it until she has learned to respond reliably to neck reining and leg cues. At that time I’ll transition her over to an appropriate bit for gaited horses.

I mounted up on Missy in the round pen and had Derek ride his horse, Finn, around the round pen with us. It helped Missy relax. I allowed her to wander around the round pen at her own discretion, my only control being to keep her going by gentle nudges with my heels every time she stopped. I was surprised to find she was responding, although minimally, to leg cues, moving away from the pressure.

After a few minutes, I felt comfortable taking her out of the round pen. I had Derek move out ahead of me and urged Missy to follow Finn. She didn’t want to leave the rest of the horse herd, which was wandering around loose, so I had Derek just lead us around the length and width of the yard, where Derek is planning to make a full-sized arena eventually.

After a couple turns around the yard, which included several crossings of a muddy area, we headed out across the road into the Diamond Fork wetlands area, where I do a lot of trail training. Missy went willingly, even gaiting at times. She has a very nice fox trot. We moved out across the fields at a very nice clip in gait. At various intervals we would stop and I would work with Missy on basics, such as backing and moving her hind quarters. She did surprisingly well.

We dropped down into the stream bed to try her at crossing the river. She followed Finn right into the water, never hesitating. I expected this, since Missy has been with me on several horse pack trips as a pack horse, in which we crossed numerous rivers. However, when I asked her to lead out and cross the river, she refused, so we worked at it until she would cross the river in the lead. Once she was comfortable with it, Derek shot this short video:

After crossing the river several times, we continued on down the valley with me working with Missy on reining control and leg cues as we went. After about a mile, however, Missy started acting up a little and acting frustrated. Rather than end on a sour note, I decided to turn around and head back to the barn and call it a good start to her training.