123 Meanwhile back at the ranch!

    Back from our visit to Ruthie's California relatives Ruthie and I settled into a very busy routine.   I was provided with a very complete training course for the young horses.  The table below was my guide to keep track of their progress.  It also allowed "Bobbie" to keep an eye on the training.

  As you can see the list mainly consists of movements we want the young horses to do.  Move your feet forward, backward, left or right.  And then focusing on desensitizing to things moving over, under, around and touching them.   This would give them the preparation to respond to future training and help with the safety of everyone around them.   Having watched the latest training video the night before the first thing I would do in the morning is head to the training arena.  At some point my employers had made it clear to me that in addition to training it was my responsibility to check and repair the training arena surface for smoothness and moisture.  Here I found a grey area as Bobbie wanted it more moist while The Don claimed that the more it was watered the harder it became.  What's a trainer to do?   I think its the Bible that says you can't serve to masters.  But wait there's more.  See this halter?  
Look at the knot that holds it on, looks pretty simple doesn't it?  Well there arte at least four ways to tie it, how do I know?  Because I tried them all, didn't take me long to take a picture to make sure I had it the way Bobbie wanted it.   That and a few, several, many Okay fine every thing she was associated with had an exact way it had to BE!  Anal?   Perhaps!  But who am I to judge, others say I am.   The Don didn't seem to notice or care about the halter knots.  His area of concern seemed to be the arena surface, the amount of strain put on the colts during their training sessions ( he was concerned about their legs) the leg wraps I put on to protect their
front legs.  Should the young horses be cross tied?   And probably the one that caused me the most grief was the colts running in the pasture.  Horses running in the pasture?  How you going to control that?  They are horses they were born to run, oh my god! They are running again, Vern, the horses are running, they will blow thru a fence!   I know we will address the darn horses running later but lets look at the leg wrap issue as that caused quite a conflict.  First of all I try and avoid conflict, if people would just leave me alone I would be quite content.   There were two types of leg wraps a long stretchy material similar to an ace bandage and a compact one that was fastened on with Velcro.   One of the first morning Bobbie instructed me on how to wrap the legs.  These horses were
so valuable that when they were sold the prospective buyer would have their legs x-rayed to check for any deformity or sign of injury.   The young horses front leg bones are still forming, soft and easily damaged.  They can be injured by any thing hitting them, especially a blow from their own hoofs.  Okay now I have it down, no problem.  As I was wrapping one of the other horses The Don observed and corrected me.  A little frustrated as I was pretty sure I had done it the way Bobbie had taught me I changed and wrapped it the other direction.  The next morning the same situation.   Well almost, this time I was sure they were both the opposite of the previous training session.  Are you kidding me?  Are they messing with me?  This time I was prepared as I had taken a photo of a wrap after one of "Bobbies"  personal training sessions.  When "The Don" questioned my wrap I produced my photographic proof.  Oh wow, now I've done it.  There was quite a heated discussion between the two horse owners.  I'm sure they will get it sorted out.  They can't always be like this can they? 
    Well for now we have the legs wrapped and the halter on, that should take care of problem areas.  How naïve I am.  Check out the ring that the lead is tied to.  The most common name it is known by is a "Blocker tie ring" and if tied correctly is a very safe way to secure a horse.  With the lead the way I have it as the horse pulls back it will slide and give him an release.  There are two more ways to arrange the rope end to change the amount of pressure needed for the slide mechanism.   Again there was confusion and misinformation.   This time Bobbie dragged (okay not dragged, just said come with me and we will get this straightened out.) now in front of the Don and me in the middle a not to polite argument raged.  Fortunately the internet provided me with the proper instruction and proof to back it up, I found out that being correct doesn't always make one popular. 
     And on a lighter note when we could get away for new dining experiences Bobbie mentioned she thought we were trying to eat our way thru the desert.