RE: Mustangs

[Marlene Moss <MARLENE.MOSS@WCOM.COM>]

Carla,
I am not any sort of expert on mustangs, having only owned 2 for the past
month.  But there was one thing I learned with these 2 that was very
interesting to me.  These mustangs had been adopted about 2 years ago as the
first horses for a friend of mine and his wife (she had previous experience
with horses).  They rode them regularly until they got into team penning and
bought 4 more quarter horses.  Then these 2 were ignored.  One has a fear of
saddling because his last 2 experiences were of having the saddle spun as
the guy dismounted.  The woman hadn't ridden in ages because of a back
injury at work.

Anyhow, both horses were nervous and distrustful, but you could see that
they had some good basic training.  We bought them sort of as a favor when
the couple moved - but I really wanted my hands on those beautiful feet!
The previous owners really cared about these horses and knew they were
nervous and didn't want us to ever sell them separately.  I promised I would
never separate them unless I was sure they were ready.

Well, we were up to 6 horses, one of which had some terrible buddying
problems with my mare, so we were doing all kinds of arranging between 2
pastures.  At one point I decided to split the 2 mustangs up, just to see
what happened.  Well, those 2 jittery horses, which took trickery to catch,
both calmed down and behaved just like the rest of our horses.  So if you
run into problems like that, they just may need better examples.

As far as round penning.  The previous owner lived and breathed Lyons and
running 2 loops around the round pen is now self prescribed punishment
anytime they think they've done something wrong.  And they have no clue how
to circle on a line.  So the moral here is that these mustangs are very
smart and will take you very literally.  Round penning is way more than
punishment, but that was the only part they got of it.  I don't have any
clue how I'm going to trot these guys out for vet checks!  But we've got to
figure it out because these guys are really nice horses and are great on the
trails, so first ride for one is already scheduled for October.

Good luck with your undertaking, it should be fun!

Marlene