Champ

Champ gets his first time with a dummy rider with milk jugs legs.

This is a 6 year old just gelded quarter horse who is in for training. He's fairly quiet and sensitive but has a fear and shyness about new things. His first reaction when something isn't quite right or startled him is to buck. He has a powerful, full arching buck that would be difficult to ride out in any situation. Objective here is to desensitize him to break him out really well before setting foot in saddle. So far I'm looking at a real challenge but only time will tell.

Day: eight

First ride on Rio. He did really well considering he's a 6 year old with little to no handling. I worked him on the lunge line and softened him to the bit before boarding. Teaching him to circle drive on the ground first made all the difference in the world. That way he already knew to move forward and around off of pressure from the stirrup it wasn't much of a transition for me in the saddle.
He did buck from a standstill twice after moving off at a walk. He needed to test my limit and see if that might get him out of working. Didn't work so well, I made him work at the trot.
He moves well at the trot and changed direction nicely. First order of business is to learn the one rein stop so we did lots of walk-trot-stop transitions. It was a great first ride I'm excited to continue on.

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Promised picture

Rio

Day one:
Rio has a sweet willingness. He is wary and reactive right off but he wants to please if your fair and consistent. He's pretty trusting for being skittish and a little shy, that just shows he wasn't ever hit in anger or mistreated.
Rio has an interesting background. He was born and raised with around 70 other horses but unfortunately his owner wasn't taking care of him and his pasture mates. He was being starved and neglected. He was recused and taken to a vet where he was then sold. I got him yesterday to train for resale and I like him already. He's responding like a clean slate. Since Rio is 6 years old it could be expected that he would have bad habits or be pushy and dominate, but he's not. I'm expecting great things from this little horse.