Coming Home.

“I come hang out there with you? It is scary in here...”

Belle is beginning to settle in after a few days out in the herd now. I was originally thinking based on previous herd match ups she was roughly middle of the pecking order. It was immediately pretty evident she is actually pretty darn low, if not the lowest out right now.

Despite the icey conditions in our area right now we got pretty lucky at my BO and the conditions were decent enough for turnout.

Based on that we opted to separate some of the herd and start the introductions.
As soon as we turned her out the two weather twins, Storm and Thunder teamed up in near tandem fashion and herded her about, not meanly but ‘were the bosses out here miss’. Belle was happy to get the heck out of their way and attempted to do her fancy Spanish horse moves, in hopes to woo them over I am sure, ha.

The twins kept their game on but also let the mini gelding in on the action.
Belle’s initial reaction was sheer terror at the tiny moving fluff ball attempting to double barrel her but not quite tall enough to meet anything but air. Not to mention his old man muscles don’t run at full speed anymore. It was really quite hilarious.

After observing the herd for a couple hours I thought it about time to head home and resume some of my weekend chores. Just as I was about to pull out of the driveway I see a blur of black at the corner of my eye. Mmm that should not be there....

The twins must have put the run on her and caught her in a corner and Belle decided to gazelle the five foot fence with a grace you wouldn’t expect from a stand still and with ice under the snow.
Naughty pony.

I was able to catch her easily for the most part. Luckily she has been well handled and despite being a two year old she is respectful for her age.



The day after BO opted to stick out Granny, a 23 year old brood mare who loves her babies and doesn’t take a lick from the other horses. The two of them bonded up near instantly, Belle now having a bodyguard who happily throws her body between any oncomers. Adorable.


Thus far, I have started pre school with some respect exercises using my dressage whip to lengthen my arm and a 10ft lead rope.
In the cross ties, Belle is super relaxed. In the arena, it seems she expects it is time to run around and show off her movement for potential buyers and gets a bit up and nervy.

While she did attempt a few dominating tricks like raising her head above mine and moving into my space or not moving away from pressure, rather into it, she only took a few minutes to understand ‘oh maybe this human actually means business. She’s scary’.

I think back and compare her to Solo and Paloma before, trying to recall how they were. While they were a bit older they had the same reactions, Solo more panicked and Pal very bullheaded and dominant.
Belle sums up to about normal for babies. Especially with the attention span of a gnat when she catches a glimpse of the door.


I also started sending her away from me, it took  a good amount of pressure at first. At one point I thought she might have a mini meltdown but that’s good. I want to see what she does when very pressured. Does she blow up? Kick out? Rear etc. Instead she did a little quarter spin and proceeded out the area of least resistance, good girl, immediately I released the pressure, gave her a pat and tried again.

As I start to get to know her, I am getting a good feeling that while she is lacks confidence now, she will be a mellow mannered adult.



Welcome home Belle!