1 Year Anniversary!

March 29th, 2017 was the day that Cisco became mine.

I've known him since the day he was born.

1 day old baby pony.

I decided in 2016 that I would like to make him my next equine partner, but wanted to sell Phantom first. Unfortunately Phantom had one of those "crap happens to horses" kind of years, and she wasn't marketed for most of the year.  I wanted to break Cisco myself, and wanted to do it before he was a teenager, so I decided that by teaching some lessons I could afford a second horse (ha!). So the decision was made to trailer him away from his only known home on March 29th.

It took 2 hours to get him on the trailer. And I wish I had taken a picture of the soaking wet, sweaty mess that came off the trailer when he arrived at the boarding facility. Thus began the new experiences he would have over the first year.

The first big one was coming into the barn. He had never been inside anything other than a 3 sided shelter. The barn itself turned out not to be too bad, but the sliding door at the end was terrifying. It took almost a month for him to stop going splat everytime I opened the door.

Being trailerable was a big project. With big sister Phantom at his side, I was able to move them to their new home in July. We still have a lot of work to do this summer, but it was a good start.

I rode him for the first time in July, just after he turned 6.

And then we moved to a new barn. Super stressful and it took a couple of week's before his brain was back in his head. Although it fell out on occasion for the next while afterwards.

We managed to get a couple more months in with some more riding before I had to take a break due to work.

The spooking at everything because the door was open phase.

It was the end of January this year before we got going again, and it's been very inconsistent due to this neverending winter that we are experiencing. There have been some moments where I think he's got it figured out, but many more moments of what the hell am I doing.

He's a goofy, social, loving boy horse. More often than not he leaves the hay pile to meet me at the gate, and I can't keep him away from me when I'm in the field. He wants to make friends with everyone he meets - horses, humans, and most other animals - pigeons excluded.

We've got a long way to go, but for a horse who had never been inside a structure, away from his place of birth, or had someone on his back, he's made great strides. Can't wait to see what the next year holds for him!

Gazing intently into the future.