A NEW FLAME! Meet "Flames Remedy"

A NEW FLAME: Flames Remedy’s Journey

Prelude: We decided it was time, once again, to take in a “project horse”.  The goal was to find a suitable candidate which met our specific criteria, train him or her up, deal with any health issues and eventually find the horse a great family that matches the horse’s aptitude, attitude and personality. The ideal horse-candidate would be a Quarter Horse or Mustang, between 3 and 15 years old with some experience under saddle with a good enough frame to handle a 200+ pound rider. We wanted to avoid major health issues because of the expense. Underweight and hoof issues we could deal with. We were prepared to deal with fear and/or abuse issues as well. We also wanted to find a horse less than 200 miles away from our home in Placerville, CA. So we put the word out on various social media forums and started our search. Surprisingly there are very few horse that met all of our criteria! We went out to meet a couple of different horses but none really seemed to fit. Call it a vibe or energy or whatever but you HAVE to listen to your intuition.

We were about to give up for the season when we got a Facebook note about a unique horse.

Meet Flames Remedy (aka: Annie), an eleven (as of March 18 so just barely eleven) year old AQHA registered Quarter Horse Mare. This little cutie is listed a sorrel in color but she has some really unique markings on her body and a great blaze on her face. She has the famous DOC BAR as a great-grandfather as well as other notable bloodlines in her family tree. To say we were interested is pretty accurate. We saw a couple of pictures and decided to set up a time to go out and meet her.

DAY 0: It’s 8:30am and we arrive at the Loomis Basin Horseman’s Arena. The hope is that this mare has a decent attitude and good frame. Her previous human has had her for three years. “Annie” was started as a two year old but then did very little for almost 5 years before her previous human got her. Then it was about becoming a good trail mount! She has had some great trail experience and seemed to thrive doing this. Her human decided to pursue the art of Endurance riding. Sadly “Annie”, who loves the trail was not the right horse for that particular discipline. Being like so many of us and only having time to focus on one equestrian discipline at a time her human had to make a choice.

Enter us. “Annie” is in need of a fitness program to turn her pasture pudge into muscle and some minor attitude adjustments. She is a really well put together, with a good frame the potential to be a nicely muscled horse! So, first impression of her  = WIN! This morning is all about the “first date” to see how we are going to get along. We listened to Annie’s human and took in all of her known history. We introduced our selves to Annie and rubbed/groomed on her a bit just to see what she likes and if there are any “oh no” spots (didn’t find any) before we headed into the smaller warm up arena. This is where the truth of everything comes out. Our goal is to see what she knows and how she reacts to the increase of pressure. If she is one who holds on the energy pressure creates we have to know that. If she increases and then quickly decreases her energy then we need to know that too. In the simplest of terms is she hot and reactive, cold and lazy or someplace in the middle.

We started off with some basic lunging work on the lead line (not too bad just a little out of shape) then moved into seeing how she can back up (again, not bad with steady pressure on the halter then we introduced a bit of Tap The Air as a backing method), yielded her hindquarters (pretty good but lacked cadence at first) and yielded her forequarters (a bit clueless on that part but she tried). We then test some lateral flexion (no idea what the hell I was asking but picked it up after several tries). We worked some leading from beside and basic desensitizing. She tacked up and saddled well (that is a WIN) and behaved herself overall.  The short of it is we took her home.

After a 1.5 hour trailer ride home we let her explore her new home, get some water and finish off the snack she had in the trailer (have a hay bag, will travel). Based on what we experienced this morning we decided to add a round pen session to today’s adventure. The goal was to get her brain engaged by moving her feet and really establishing some foundational respect. By the end of the round-pen session she had established a consistent direction, gave two eyes, locked on/followed us around and established a consistent change of direction. All in all the session got everyone using the thinking side of their brain and a bit of a cardio workout. We’ll call that a win.

Then it was social time. Annie met Ronan and Argent. Seeing Annie near Ronan made our brains yell “they would make some damn cute babies” but those days are behind Ronan. Everyone seemed to get along.

We are going to keep her separate for a few days to see how she reacts to her new surroundings. To say that Day 0 was full is pretty accurate. This mare has some real energy and athletic ability. Her need of a “job” is pretty high right now so we will be working three to four days a week until the 2016 Spring Equestrian Retreat happening over Memorial Day Weekend. We’ll haul all three of the horses to this great event and expose them to as much as possible. This should be a great learning experience for Annie and for us.

Tomorrow we are meeting some friends in El Dorado for a casual day of training. All three horses are going so Annie gets to dive right into the adventure pool!

Stay tuned!

 Hanging out.

 Basic work on the line.

 Trotting in the round pen.

Playing in the small arena.

Hanging out.