SHE'S HERE! She's finally HERE!! :D

Okay, I know, I promised a post or two about bitless and clicker training. I'm sorry. College actually started making me work, and stuff. But I'm here! And said posts will come eventually.

But a more exciting topic: Reina came home today! It's official! I have her JC certificate, coggins, bill of sale... the works! She's currently safe and adjusting to her new home. :D I am beside myself with joy! Finally... a horse of my own! It's been far too long since I had one.

Anyways! So. It was quite a drive up there, but my BO was nice enough to take me and his truck & trailer up there for the price of gas! Such a great guy. Time passed pretty quickly on the way up, and getting Reina into the trailer actually proved easier than I expected, I suppose. She was pretty terrified and upset that we made her go into the big hunking monster of claustrophobia, though. But she was being silly, and we just kept being persistent. She bounced up a few times and actually hit her head once (!). She didn't bounce up again. Smart horse. I wish she didn't do that, though. I felt so bad! But there was nothing I could do; she'd walk on perfectly fine and then, with one step left until we could close it, BAM! OMG-I-DON'T-LIKE-IT-IN-HERE-itis set in and she backed up so fast she'd pop up sometimes. So she bonked herself and learned to keep her hooves on the ground. My poor tall TB!

So, long story short, we got her in after 10-15 minutes of persistence, and then rode back to the barn.

Let me take a moment to say: I love my barn! It's huge and quiet and gorgeous and has everything I could possibly want! Empty stalls for use; nice, knowledgeable BOs who have been in the horse business for years; one of the BOs is a farrier and an equine dentist, as well as a horse trainer (he's awesome!); a nice, big, solid round pen for training; tons of fields to ride around in; and dozens of trails and thousands of miles of state parks within a 10-minute trailer ride! It's so great!!

Okay. Rant of how awesome my barn is.. over. So she was banging around back there for the first 2 minutes or so while we were stalling in the driveway talking to her owner previous owner; but then, once we got going, she got quiet. Good girl. :) She was a very good trailer-er.. no banging after those first few minutes, no massive shifts of weight, no talking! She rode like a champ! Then we get to the barn, and she gets all nervous and shaky when the ramp comes down, but surprisingly!, she doesn't fly off the trailer (my old pony used to do that; talk about making handlers nervous! Yeesh). She just stood there while I undid the butt bar, and then she backed off really easily. He handed her over to me and I walked her to her new paddock! It was all set up for her with a giant net of hay, her dinner in shallow rubber bucket on a mat next to the hay, and several buckets of water. She gets the place to herself for now, while she and the other horses get acquainted! So I walk her over, and she's snorty and looking, but she doesn't spook or run. She's so very sensible!

In fact, she doesn't pull against me at all. We get into her paddock and I go to undo her rope halter (which I'm not very fast about, I'll admit - I'm new to the rope tack scene!), and she just stands patiently. Snorting, yes. Looking, yes. Tense, absolutely. But she stands perfectly still for me until the halter is clear off her face and my hands are back at my side and she's sure it's okay to leave, and only then does she go! And she doesn't even take off; she just trots out big, flipping her tail up in the air, snorting with her head up high, prancing about inspecting things!

Inspecting her new domain!

Lookit that tail! I guess nobody ever told her she's not an Arabian.

This prancing snortiness goes on for 2-3 minutes, and then she settles right in.

She's pretty, and she knows it. Here she is modeling the "Classic 

Thoroughbred" look. It's all the rage in Kentucky, you know!

And this is her, being cute, walking towards me! :)

This surprises Nick (the barn owner (BO) who came with me to get her). It makes me quite proud. She's really quite sane; I knew she was smart, but she keeps impressing me with just how well she keeps her cool for a horse that really doesn't seem to have been handled too much. She's such a good girl!

So she beelines for her dinner after this little parade and a few bouts of sniffing with the locals. She takes a bite, then pins her ears to make nasty faces and warn off aforementioned locals. Takes a bite, makes grumpy face.

Grumpy face for locals! 

Take a bite.... 

Another grumpy face! That is HER dinner, thank you. 

Anddd... more bites!

Rinse & repeat until food is gone!

All gone! Now, she gets to pose for more pictures! More "Classic TB."

Said locals are unimpressed and merely keep staring at her with pricked ears.

I could almost see their thought bubbles: "OMG! A new mare! Lookit that!" 

"HEY! A newcomer!" "Hihow'reya!?" "Who're yooouuuuu!?"

So after dinner, she walks around a bit more. I hop into the paddock and walk up to her, hold my hand out, and she takes a few little baby steps towards me to sniff me and put her nose on my hand. Cuteness. I pet her for a minute, and then she decides to sniff another new neighbor horse, so I let her be.

These 2 pictures were added in for the sole purpose of extra cuteness. :D

Oh, and Nick said she was at least 16.3. Who knew! I got a big horse!! That should help me make up for being short on the ground, and this pleases me greatly. :D

All in all, Operation: Relocation was a resounding success!