December 7, 2006
What cute babies I have! Every time I work with them I love them even more. I just let them loose after I get them out of the gate, so they can walk up to the hitching posts by themselves (I have to make sure the other four horses don't come out of the gate as well). Well, today they wandered up, but when I got up there and called for them, they both walked right up to me. Awwwwh.

After Nova was done with his treats, I took him down to the circle to lunge him a bit. He was good, as usual, and also as usual... He was a bit lazy. He does really well lunging though, and impresses me every time. (As I mentioned above.)

We took the babies for a walk after that, seeing as it was gorgeous outside today. He ignored the dogs (since he had backup today), and trucked like a champion all the way down to the arena... Once we got past it, his pace slowed riiiiiiight down. But once he realized that yes we were continuing, he started to walk a decent pace again. He was really good today - having Sudha come with him helped, of course.

December 12, 2006
After seeing pictures of Nova's mum (Pavane/Savannah) undersaddle just this morning, I got the idea to put my saddle on both him and Su. So, while Nova was munching away at his treats, I tacked him up. He didn't even bat an eye at the saddle and me fiddling around with it and doing up the girth. I've placed the saddle on him before, but never did up the girth on it. Of course, knowing Nova, I expected no less from him. When he finished, and I asked him to walk away, he was more interested in trying to scratch himself under the saddle pad than anything else. But, I did get him moving and he wandered after me without a care in the world. Let's hope he's that nonchalant about the whole deal when I go to get on him the first time.



After that I put his new boots on (and got whacked in the head by his knee for my efforts - he has to learn to keep his feet on the ground) and the three of us went for a jaunt down to the arena. I was pretty happy with both of them and how they plowed right over the snowbank and down the ditch to get to the arena, as well as how they both walked through the deep snow. In the arena, Nova just basically stood with me and followed me wherever I went in the arena - no desire to run and frolic like a normal yearling. It was in fact Su who was the one who as being all crazy. Of course though, when I went to bring them back, both of them got all excited and did their best to drag me home. This did give me the idea to see what Nova thinks about being ponied off of Kaila in the near future.

December 30, 2006
Just a really quick little update. Grabbed Nova out of the pasture today after our short bareback ride, and Mom ponied him for a few minutes off of Kaila. He did really good! All the work with having him give to halter pressure (from Veronique, Anna and myself) has worked wonders. When he'd fall a bit behind, he'd soon give and jog a bit to catch up with Kaila. He made Kaila a bit spunky because he had so much energy while he was out and about there. He was so adorable when they were going around.