Adventures in Breaking Colts: Lesson #1 Halters

We have 2 beautiful little filly colts who are just about a year old. We got them a few months ago. Actually, we were basically given them because for some reason people dont like to ride mares. I love mares, and my husband doesnt have a problem with them either so we gladly added them to our herd.

Socks is the bay and Coco is the black.

Before I start with the fun of halter breaking them, let me first say that this part is typically already done. When they are much younger. And much smaller. However that is not the case with these 2 as the previous owners didnt get them started and we got them in the middle of winter when the ground is hard and it hurts them alot more when the hit it (which they do...apparently often). So now we have two 500 lbs 9 month old fillys who have never been touched by a human, no idea what a halter is or why the scary human thinks he needs to put that thing on their heads.

Yep...what would possibly go wrong.

Well thankfully, not much. At first.

Socks was lucky volunteer #1 (because she thought she found and escape route...not so much), into the make shift ally hubby set up. She shook like a leaf, tried to dig out, climb out, back out (she was blocked from that happening) eventually, after talking to her and touching her, she stood there and relaxed. I took a little more time for him to slide the halter over her head, but he did it and she was fine. Well, maybe not fine in her book, but she was quiet and relaxed and not showing signs me being to traumatized. 40 minutes! A very good girl!

Then came the other one. Coco is a little bit bigger, faster and apparently has more "spirit".



In horse language that translates into "fear of dying at the hands of the mean guy in the hat".



When I left to go get the girl child from school, he had both of them in the alley and it looked like it was going to go the same way that it did with Socks. Slow but steady.

Umm, not so much. As I found out when I got back an 2 hours later and hubby was now in a larger pen, with a rope around the neck of a very sweaty, party bloody and extermely panicked filly.

Hubby was pretty sweaty and tired looking also.





"uhhhh...what happened?"





"This one has a little more fire then the other one" was his winded response.





All he was trying to do now was get her to trust him enough to look at him....which is what needed to happen to get the rope off.

Here is the trick with horses...they cant win. Ever. If they win once, they will try again and again. You have to get back on when you fall off. You have to go back through the gate when they wanted to jump it. You have to tied them up again when they break loose to go eat grain with they buddies. This is a safety issue by means of respect for the rider, as well as a manners issue. At least in our barn thats how it goes.

So he couldnt stop until he would be ending on a good note, which at that point was simply getting her to make eye contact with him so he could get the rope off her.

The blood came into play when she flipped out (literally) and landed on her back, smacking her face into a fence. Just a little blood from a couple of scrapes, nothing to worry about.

Here is part I love the most is watching hubby. Here we have a cowboy. All cowboys are tough...well, they all appear to be tough but I suspect that below the dirt, grease, cow crap and anything else they happen to be covered in, they are big teddy bears, but still....they are tough. Watching him stand there with the patience of a saint, talking quietly and petting her gently to help soothe the terrified filly was almost as sweet as watching him hold his son for the first time.



I wonder where those patience are with our two-legged filly at times????



Anyhoo...1 down, 1 to go....stayed tuned because tomorrow. Hubby has all night to rest and get ready for round #2. I have a feeling Coco is doing the same thing.