2011 Colorado EMM - The beginning!

It has been a whirlwind of a few days. On Thursday morning, we began our journey down to Canon City, CO to pick up my horse for the 2011 Colorado Extreme Mustang Makeover. On the way, we stopped in Denver to have lunch with one of my best childhood friends who I hadn't seen in 15 years! It was fantastic to see her again and we agreed that we need to get together again soon - certainly before another many years goes by. She is planning to attend the EMM event in June - it would be awesome to see her there.

Thursday night we stayed at a hotel in Colorado Springs and finally got a good night's sleep after having hit the road on only about 5 hours of sleep. The next morning we enjoyed a great breakfast at the hotel and hit the road again. Here is the rig outside the hotel:

When we arrived at Canon City, we checked in at the prison. We had to be escorted in to the facility and back to where the horses are kept. Someone asked me for my halter and they left to go halter my horse.

This pickup was even more mysterious that when I got Onyx. There, when I checked in they told me what I was getting. I knew she was a black filly and had her paperwork before I ever saw her. This time I didn't know anything at all and the chute was out of sight. So when Jeff backed the trailer up, we just had to wait and see what came down the alley. I heard calls of "horse coming!" from the guys working the gates. I saw under one solid gate, some big hooves running. As he first came into sight, I saw a BIG sorrel - he looked huge.

He trotted calmly up the alley and stopped at the trailer to sniff it. A guy waved a stick at him and he jumped in. One of the guys there called out "Oh, he's gonna be easy!"

I really wish I could have filmed the whole thing, the suspense was exciting, wating that alleyway and not knowing what I'd see when the horse appeared. Unfortunately no cameras or cell phones were allowed in the prison complex, so there are no pictures of when I first saw him.

At our first rest stop, Jeff took a couple of pictures:

Here I am peeking in and saying Hi to my new charge:

Jeff and I both marveled at his size and the length and thickness of his legs. He has the heavy feet and bones that Jeff had admired on Onyx, but I think this guy's legs are even heavier, and much longer.

I began reading his paperwork once we were back on the road. He is from the South Steens HMA in Oregon. He was captured at approximately 2-1/2 years old and is now 4. His height was estimated on his paperwork as being 15.1h.

Upon returning home, we decided to back the trailer up to the barn and unload him into the arena for me to start working with him. We wanted to take every precaution to prevent his escape and so we had quite a plan of panels and such organized to funnel him into the arena and to contain him if he jumped anything.

I instructed Jeff o stay on the far side of the panel down the aisle,to turn the horse back if he tried to go through or over the panel. Jeff decided to set up the camera to record, right before he went over the panel and waited. I'm glad he filmed this, because after all of our preparations to keep this "wild" horse contained - this is what happened:



He simply sniffed the trailer again, stepped off, walked down the aisle, around the corner, and into the arena. As I strolled along behind him, I looked over at Jeff and laughed. His comment was "this horse is gonna be cake." Haha!

Jeff took one picture of the horse exploring the arena:

Unfortunately we didn't take any more pictures after this, because we were both wrapped up in working with him. We opened the round pen and "drove" him in there. (again, we basically just pointed him in the direction and he walked in. Jeff watched as I got him caught and began to work on touching him. After I had been rubbing his shoulder and neck, Jeff then asked if he could work with the horse a bit. So he was able to touch a new wild mustang for the first time. Jeff and the horse both did great and Jeff continued the petting and rubbing until we had him comfortable with being petted from head to hip. Then I took over again and worked on leading. When we called it a day, I led him out of the round pen, out of the arena, back down the aisle, and into his stall.

For the rest of the day I went in and out of his stall a few times, getting him water, and hay, and petting him. He settled right in, eating, drinking, playing in his water, and watching me as I took care of my other horses. All in all it was a fantastic first day!

He is very curious and most certainly easy-going. I made it a point not to get him too worked up or moving too fast, but I can report that he seems to have a very nice, smooth-looking trot. I'm very excited about our next three months together!