As a horse crazy girl, I can never have enough horses. Surely, those of you that are horse crazy feel the same way too?! I thought 3 horses was enough but as it turns out, it wasn’t. So I bought another horse! Y’all meet Keira.
About Keira
She is a registered Paint Horse mare out of Lopin Lazy. Her registered name is Fancy Lopin. I purchased her as a 2 year old and this year she will be turning 4. I had planned to start her last year as a 3 yo but that didn’t work out as planned.
Since it’s a long story, I’m going to share why in future posts. Her story is a bit of a complicated one, but well worth sharing since I’ve learned so much that I know can help others with their horses!
She is a big girl coming in at 15.2h in the front and 16h in the rear right now. It’s my hope as she continues to grow, she’ll level out around 16h. I purchased her with the intentions of starting her myself.
Why I Bought a New Horse
When I saw the ad for Keira, her coloring immediately caught my attention. She was a tall, good looking 2 year old and a mare. Now I know there are lots of you that aren’t Mare fans but I am. I love a good mare with a great mind. So I contacted the owner and went to see her.
Going in, I knew she was being shown as an untouched 2 year old and put out to pasture as a weanling. They just started handling her when they listed her for sale. This was about 2-3 months before I saw her. She was beautiful in person but wasn’t exactly personable. She didn’t seem to hate people but didn’t like them either. I would say she “tolerated” being around people but was willing to do what you asked.
Since she had zero training there wasn’t really much to see or do with her. I lunged her around to see how she moved and touched her everywhere to see how she handled it. I checked out her feet and noticed she has a club foot up front. Not a turn off for me since Gracie has one too and it has never stopped her from doing anything. Plus, I knew the club foot was due to farrier issues and could be somewhat fixed.
Anyway, I could see her potential and thought she would be a good challenge for my first horse to start. As I said, she had not been handled much so everything was going to be new to her. This included getting into a trailer. To say I was nervous to haul her home would be an understatement. To my surprise though, she did great! She loaded onto the trailer with no hesitation, hauled well on the 2 hr ride home and unloaded with little problem. That was honestly the biggest fear. My trailer is a slant load, so trying to back a horse off a trailer that doesn’t know how to back could be an issue. Thankfully, it wasn’t and she gives to pressure well.
Colt Starting Surprises
After getting her home, I turned her out for a few days to get use to the new environment and seeing the “new to her” horses. She was calm, friendly and settled in better than expected. So a week later I start putting her into a new routine which just involved handling her more. This is when things got interesting and I realized how much of a personality she had.
First thing to show up, a bad bad attitude when grooming her or trying to handle her feet. She would try to kick, bite, paw, rear etc. I mean this horse was plain mean. This was the type of behavior that could be dangerous, especially for someone with little horse experience, like my husband.
Getting her started in a training routine was top priority and something that I knew I likely was going to need help with. She was like a mustang coming out of the wild.
However, help was nearly impossible to find so I ended up working with her myself for the first couple of months. Shew, she made me want to cry some days with her bad attitude. I spent hours every day teaching her to give to pressure on the lead, getting use to be touched all over, picking up feet, backing, etc. All the things you take for granted if you’ve never started a young horse.
…and this is where I’m going to stop the story for now. Stay tuned, I’ll be posting the next part to this story in a couple days.
So Tell Me
Have you ever bought an unstarted baby horse before? How did it go for you?
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