Wyndover Farm

08/20/2024

Took Captain out of the arena, today. This video is from the beginning of our session. I finished in the exercise field, his first time out of the arena since restarting. He was really good, even driving away from his buddies. No hesitation, no calling. Good boy, Cap!

08/18/2024

The boys grazing in the yard.

08/18/2024

Letting the boys loose in the yard..... Like pulling teeth to get them to leave their green pasture for more green. (Don't worry, the amount of time they are allowed on green grass is carefully monitored.)

08/18/2024

The difference between girls and boys.

08/17/2024

08/17/2024

Native Arabian costume class

Aka white women in the desert? 🤷😜😎

08/17/2024

Northwest Fair costume contests. 4 classes.

08/17/2024

Last day for the Northwest Fair in Lynden!

Lots of fun, come on out!

(But eat before you come, the food prices are ridiculous. $17 for a corn dog!?!?)

08/17/2024

Northwest Fair 6 up draft horse hitch. I tried to focus on their rein handling. My arms hurt just watching.

All teams are from WHATCOM COUNTY!!! 48 HORSES!

08/17/2024

Ladies....

08/16/2024

This is the beginning of Captain's 4th arena drive. I notice he's very stiff going to the right so we will do some more ground work to increase flexibility and add some PT stretches. Today we did lots of direction changes. I was really trying to get him to lift his rib cage and bend but I am struggling. I know I need a longer whip. Anyone have Muffy Seaton's video about bending I can borrow? 🤷‍♀️

OMG me and video technology! So I TRIED to video this session with my GoPro but apparently recorded my walk from the barn and STOPPED recording right before the drive. This is from the arena cam. No sound, sorry. ARGH.

08/16/2024

Kate Trono lunging Riba in the roundpen. While this doesn't seem like a big deal, it is.

When Riba first arrived in 2018 she was a 5ish yo mare who spent her entire life wild on the range. When she first got here she would not let me approach her right side. In the beginning, we had a few violent outbursts about me being on her right side. We worried about blindness or injury but she checks out perfectly with the vet.

Over the years she's taken a long time to get comfortable with new ideas. In the beginning, roundpenning was a challenge but that's one thing I did accomplish during COVID. COVID and my head injury really impeded the progress, for a couple years.

We struggled to lead from the right side and she would only lunge counter-clockwise. Kate had been working on all of that.... One step at a time. Kate has her back on track in saddle training. She's still too reactive to carry a rider, at this point, but we continue to expand her comfort bubble. The progress may seem tiny but it's forward progress. I'll take that any day of the week. WTG, Kate!!

08/14/2024

Lena Voronovich ground driving Captain to Lake Terrell Wildlife Area . Won't be long before he'll be there with cart in tow.

You can never ground drive too much!

08/13/2024

I love my boy!

Here I'm doing desensitizing with ropes around Lautrec's legs. One of the many, many steps in developing a safe carriage pony. He's 3 so we're doing lots of ground and in hand work, at this point. I'm slating January-ish for his first drive, but we've got lots and lots of fun steps before then.

Lautrec and Picasso share the Pony Palace, a 12x24 barn with an attached dry paddock. We recently fenced in the (Toulouse's) exercise field so the boys could graze here, from time to time, and help me with the mowing. In 2 days, with 4 geldings spending many hours, not a single p**p fell in the field. What good boys!!! They went back to the barn/paddock and kept the field clean. (We pick all of our exercise areas)

08/12/2024

A couple more hours on the box for Kataya U-ren! She and Brody are developing into quite the team!!!
....[drum roll].... So much so.......

She picks him up, tomorrow!

Kat is an experienced pony owner and farrier who approached me about training her American Shetland, Fawks. She wants to compete at combined driving events, which as you all know, is EXACTLY why I trained Brody. She has some experienced horse friends who suggested she consider buying a trained pony as her first driving pony.

This really developed nicely. She wants to get into my sport that I love. It's nice to have instant friends. As you saw from previous posts, she spent several hours (about 10) in the past 2 weeks here, we've gone over and over and over the basics of safely harnessing and hitching. Today, I had her harness and hitch without a header so that we were both comfortable that she can do all necessary fitting. We used 2 different carts and harnesses so she learned about how to fit pony to cart (and not just X hole on X strap) .

We spent time driving in the arena, on roads, fields, and trails. Today she finished with a solo field drive. She's a natural. I'm super excited to see what they do next spring!

08/08/2024

Spent another great day with Kataya U-ren and Brody. She spent an hour driving in the arena, learning to maneuver around some basic obstacles. Then we switched harnesses and carts and went out together on the roads and trails. She did most of the driving, through Lake Terrell, including going in the boat ramp. Kat did great! She's a natural. At the beginning of our drive we were struggling on balancing, together, in the cart. It's challenging to balance together when also going over super unbalanced ground. You'll note we struggled getting a consistent trot, at first, because we were a difficult load to pull. Easy entry carts aren't known for their suspension and it is a learned and practiced skill to balance in a 2 wheeled cart. You'll notice that we eventually figure it out, though on the longer grass and rough ground we still struggled. Compared with the nice, steady gaits when she's in the cart alone...... She's figured it out.... I'm obviously the weak link lol

08/07/2024

Introducing, officially, Captain! He's a 6 yo American Shetland pony who has been at Wyndover, in training, since the end of April. I have a bit of dialogue throughout the video but discuss a bit of his background around the 6 min mark. Then the only rocky bit of the drive was around the 9 min mark, and there's a bit of dialog about his background, there.

Sadie Jansson, Kate Trono, Lena Voronovich, and Mariah Elkes, the Wyndover Interns, aka "The Ladies", have all been integral with every step of his retraining! We would not have the relaxed pony you see here, were it not for the hours upon hours these ladies have roundpenning, lunging, ground driving, longlining, and general handling and manners.

(this is raw video, unedited b/c I'm exhausted. sorry. At least I kept the pony in the middle, this time. 🤷‍♀️

08/06/2024

Who goes where, when, and why.

Today, Lautrec joined the main, mixed herd for the first time (minus Reyna). Lautrec has been sharing the Pony Palace (a 12x24 barn with its own dry paddock) for weeks, now, and I have been pasturing them together with Captain and Brody. Lautrec is now 3 and I believe it's critically important for young horses to learn manners from other horses. As well, Arro is only 6 and still very playful, where Picasso is not, so my hope and expectation is that he will get more running and romping in with the herd. Riba is also known to be quite playful.

Since Reyna has been back, she's been very vocal in her complaints at Picasso, any time they have a shared fence line. Considering the overly dependent nature of their relationship, before she left this spring, I'm choosing to not put them together. With as snippy as she's been towards him, and his inability to move, quickly, to safety, I don't want her hooves near him.

We've had an issue, in the past, with her being herd bound. I had the same issue with Captain, when he first arrived. So she will spend alone time, every day, as Captain does. Captain wasn't as animated as this but did pace and call, quite a bit. Now, he is relaxed on his own. And this makes such a difference when we're working him. In the beginning, when we ground drove him away from the herd and stopped him so he couldn't see the other horses, he'd fidget and dance. Now he'll stand, with manners, at length. I'll eventually do a post about him with a proper introduction, for those of you wondering who Captain is?!?

(Sorry about the horrible video🤷 I seriously suck at it)

08/06/2024

Lena Voronovich goofing around on Arro. Not shown here but Lena cantered her for the first time. OMG she looks sooooo comfortable!

08/06/2024

A new friend, Kataya U-ren, taking a driving lesson on Brody. This is her first time driving! He was a good boy for her. WTG, Kat!

07/31/2024

My boys Lautrec the Welsh and Picasso, the warmblood of color, standing with manners, waiting for fly spray.

07/30/2024

A neighbor doing some target practice had Nova all worried. I wasn't sure what it was, at first. She spent an hour under my legs as I drove circles in the arena......

Harrowing the arena during the rain = no dust = smart cookie lol. Even if I did get a little wet.

I don't post about the dogs, much, but we have 2 Tornjaks, Nebula and Nova (LGDs from Croatia) and 1 (with our name on a wait-list for a second) sheltie, Kuiper. As all of our horses are named after painters, all of our dogs are named after celestial bodies.

07/30/2024

We're practicing our loading skills!

Whether or not you plan to compete with your horse, spend some time working on these life skills that maximize safety and minimize stress for both of you.
>>>https://bit.ly/EQShowSkills

07/29/2024

Kate Trono working on loading Riba.

07/26/2024

Turning ponies out! Picasso and Lautrec are now in the Pony Palace. Reyna is back from her lease (her other mother has a lot on her plate, right now, with some sick babies). Mariah will continue Reyna's eventing training here at Wyndover Farm.

Reyna arrived a few days ago, but ever since, any meeting between Reyna and Picasso goes like this. Lots of drama. I'm pretty sure she's accusing him of sleeping with every other mare in the herd, while she was gone. And I'm pretty sure he's screaming that she's nuts and has she MET the other mares in the herd!?!? Drama, drama, drama

07/26/2024

I've moved Lautrec and Picasso into the Pony Palace, a small barn with attached paddock that opens into the exercise field for grazing. Picasso is great with young ones, teaching them their proper horse manners. He'll play with them but keep them in line and teach them to keep a clean stall.

I plan to co-stall (2 stalls with a shared paddock) the 2 for the next six months. Picasso will teach him that we never potty in the barn. He'll also reinforce that Momma is always the safe choice and absolute obedience is fun. Neither Riba nor Arro potty in their stall and in fact try to hold their p*e until they are out of the barn.

07/24/2024

I'm writing this post with a heavy heart. Our beloved Mini-Van passed away this morning. He was 24.

We rescued him in 2017 as a stallion at risk. He was a breeding stallion that never should've been and the oldest horse Dr. Sauter ever gelded. He came to us under weight with horrible teeth and feet and no manners. We rehabbed him then in 2019 he went out on care lease as a companion horse to an elderly mare. They took good care of him until the end when they allowed him free access to the elderly mare's grain. He ballooned up. When he came back from the lease he was over 100lbs, over weight with acute laminitis and rain rot on his back. He colicked the day he returned and that started a 10-day touch and go, with several vet visits. We got him healthy again and he's been living his best life since.... Though he has bouts of colic every few months. Dr. Sauter saw him 4 times and he was seen by other Kulshan vets twice more. So we know the routine.

He started looking off, 2 days ago. Just a bit lethargic. Still eating and p**ping. Yesterday he was acting mildly colicky so I gave him banamine, as previously directed. He was still eating his soupy gruel and passing some p**p, though not a huge amount. Last night he seemed perked up and was rattling his door for dinner. This AM he had finished his dinner, he was laying down, but only had 1 small pile of p**p. When we went out at 11 AM he was gone. Miss you already my little mini man.

07/22/2024

Double-lunging over cavalettis with a 2.5 minute stand still.