I’ve been shopping around for a new horse for the second leg of our Mexico-to-Canada horse pack trip. Those of you who have been following the blog will recall that my Missouri Fox Trotter mare, Lizzy, had some issues on the first leg. Her long-strided, swinging walk caused rub sores on her shoulders, chest, and rump wherever the pack saddle rigging straps rubbed. She was the only horse with this issue. It seems her summer coat of hair is a bit thinner than my other horses. For this reason, I had to keep her under riding saddle more than I wanted, which eventually caused a sore spot on her back as she began to lose weight during the last part of the trip. In the final analysis, while she is my favorite trail horse, she just isn’t the horse for this pack trip.

I was actually shopping for a new mustang, since we had such good luck with Jimbo, and came across a few possibilities, but it seemed that they were either too far away or weren’t broke enough for my needs (I don’t bounce like I used to and just didn’t want to have to deal with breaking a bucker). Then, a couple weeks ago, a horse that wasn’t too far from my locale caught my eye from an ad on KSL Classifieds, out of Heber, Utah. I kept going back to the ad, because I liked the color and build of the horse. Finally, I decided to make a call and go see him.

The ad indicated he was a grade gelding and that his sire was APHA registered. He was 3-1/2 years old, 14 hands, and had a couple months of training. The price was a little higher than I was looking for and he was a bit younger than I wanted, but I decided to take a look anyway.

I invited my good friend, Rob Prody, and we headed up to Heber one afternoon, about an hour’s drive. We took a good look at him and found he was a bit taller than stated in the ad, at about 14.5 hands, I’d guess. He has a nice, stocky build, short back, straight legs, nice chest and rump, and nice large, round hooves. He had a calm and friendly disposition and was easy to catch, although he tried to avoid being haltered. Looking at his teeth, I could see that the last of his baby teeth was about to come out, so his age was about right. The one thing that worried me a little was a quarter-crack on the outside of his right rear hoof. It wasn’t actually opened up, but I could see the line running up to the coronet. I couldn’t see any injury there, though. I also found he didn’t like me messing with his rear hooves too much, and he made a half-hearted attempt to cow-kick me a couple times. I decided not to make the purchase at that time, but told the owners I might call back in a couple weeks.

After missing out on a couple mustangs I wanted to see, and taking a couple weeks off of my horse shopping, for vacation and work, I found my mind returning to this gelding. Once I got home and had time to continue my search, I decided I would call again on this paint gelding and make an offer, before looking at three other horses I had selected to check out. The long and short is that the owner and I came to agreement on the price and agreed on the sale.

After spending an evening digging my horse trailer out of about 18″ of snow down here in Salem, with the help of a neighbor with a fairly large 4wd John Deere tractor, I was able to pick the horse up on Wednesday evening.

I again took Rob up with me, thinking that we’d just pick up the horse, stop somewhere for a dinner, then head home. You know what they say about “best laid plans.” After arriving at the owners’ place, I signed the Bill of Sale they had prepared and handed over the money. After some small talk and getting to know each other a bit, we headed out to catch-up the horse and load him into the trailer. That’s when the owner mentioned the horse had only been in one other horse trailer and they had a tough time loading him. I could feel the warning lights and horns going off in my head. Since I seem to always buy greenbroke horses, I normally don’t pay for them until I have them in the trailer. I had forgotten all about that simple protocol this time.

Well, he was easy enough to catch, and I had just a little trouble getting his halter on, but he lead easily over to the trailer. Due to the situation of the residence and the amount of snow in the drive, I had parked the truck and trailer on the side of the road. I had the emergency flashers going to keep us from getting hit by passing traffic in the dark. So, here we are bringing this greenbroke horse up to the back of my trailer in the dark with the emergency lights flashing and us shining flashlights around. Looking inside that cavernous, dark trailer, he simply said, “Nope! Not going in there!”

Realizing this was not going to be a short, easy project after the first couple of failed attempts, I pulled out a long training lead, hooked one end to his halter ring and passed the other through the tie loop in the front stall. Holding the tail of this rope, I kept pressure on him and coaxed him from inside the trailer, while my helpers attempted to haze him in from the rear. He would get right up to the trailer, then fight and pull back. I just kept the tension on him, allowing it to slip just enough to keep him from hitting his head on the trailer as he fought. My help had to really scramble a couple times to get out of his way. At one point he reared up, turned, and clopped the owner on top of the head with one of his front hooves. Luckily, he had no shoes on and the owner had a sock hat that offered some protection. Nobody, including the horse, got hurt in the process, other than the owner’s knot on the noggin. After close to two hours, the gelding got tired and simply gave up. He hopped into the trailer, I led him into the front stall, shut the divider, and we had him ready to travel. I put some hay in the manger for him and we headed off down the road.

I felt him move around a bit the first mile or so, but when we stopped at a restaurant about three miles away and checked on him he was fine and was settling down. By the time we came out after dinner, he was quite calm and I was comfortable with heading back down Provo Canyon to Salem.

Once back in Salem, at the pasture where the rest of my herd is kept, I opened the loading gate and started to back him out of the trailer. He got one leg out the back, said “Nope!” and hopped back in. After several minutes of failed attempts at coaxing him from in front, I got out of the trailer and gently coaxed him by pulling lead rope from behind, past his legs. Eventually, he came piling out and everything was good.

I led him over to the fence to allow him to meet his new pasture mates. Seeing no strong aggressive moves from him or my other horses, after a few minutes I released him into the pasture. We sat and watched them for about a half hour and it appeared he would be fine and that the other horses weren’t bullying him enough for me to worry. We left him then and headed for home.

I finally had a chance to mess with him a bit this afternoon and to start his orientation and training. Again, even in the large pasture with other horses, he was easy to catch, but made it difficult to get his halter on. We’re going to have to work on that. I curried him a bit, then tried his hooves. He allowed me to lift all his hooves, although he’s a bit spoiled. We’re going to be working on his hooves a lot, until he figures out that it’s not an optional procedure and that he  might as well just relax and let me do it.

I also learned that he doesn’t like his stomach messed with. He narrowly missed me with a good cow-kick today. Had he not tried that half-hearted cow-kick when I first saw him, and had I not acted with caution this time around, he would have got me pretty good. So, we spent a few minutes working on that bad habit with the knotted end of a heavy lead rope. He learns pretty quickly.

Next week I’ll see about saddling him up and give him a bit of a test drive. I also need to take him for a vet check, Coggins test, and brand inspection.

This gelding doesn’t have a mean bone in him, but he’s very spoiled. He’s going to take some work. I think he’ll develop into a fine horse for Dad and me to take on the second leg of our Mexico-to-Canada horse pack trip.

His name is Reno, and I think it fits him. I have four months to get him into shape.

Thanks to Travis and Terra Naffziger, for selling him to me and helping load him on the trailer.