TOABH: Making of the Horse

This is the next installment in the Owl's Approve blog hop!  She asked: Last week, we talked about our babies.  This week, let's talk about our greenies.  Who trained your horse?  Is your ponykins still in the process of figuring out this whole monkey-on-my-back thing, did you send off for thirty or sixty or ninety days, or did you buy a horse with all the bells and whistles?  Who has helped your horse become what he or she is today?

I bought Chrome when he was five months old and I've done all of his training myself.  Only two other people have ridden him, my husband (twice for very short rides due to his back and sat on him double with me for about half a minute once) and my farrier (walked him up the driveway and back, then trotted him up and back, so just a minute or two).  All of the other work has been my doing.

When I got him as a weanling he knew how to be haltered, led, tied, hooves picked, groomed, dewormed and I think that's it.  I was the first person to load him on a trailer.  I gave him his first bath.  I taught him how to whoa (he liked to walk into me at first).  I introduced him to all of the equipment he would see as an adult.  I was the first to ride him.  We've had a lot of firsts together.  I've been documenting the whole process since before I even brought him home here on this blog, but I'll share some pictures of our recent work just for a fun recap.  :)

The first thing I want to mention is his monthly progress reports.  Every month on the nineteenth I took a picture of him (conformation shots definitely improved over time with practice lol), measured his height and weight and shared what we had worked on that month.  I kept up with this really well in the beginning, but I've slacked off in the last couple of years.  To read all of those posts click here.  It's a really fun way to recap everything we've done and to see how he's changed over the years.  Also on my About Chrome page you can see his growth in numbers (his height every month), in pictures and his riding training in pictures.  It is out of date too.  I need to work on that, but you get the gist of the early years.  I also have a blog recap page that is a condensed version of everything on the blog.  I need to get caught up on it as well.  A condensed version of all of his rides so far can be found here or you can read all of his rides in detail by clicking the backing/riding Chrome label here.

Okay now on to some pictures.  This is definitely not everything we've done (and I'm sticking with the recent ridden stuff since that's what the question is asking about), so if you want to see everything check out the recap page.  :)  These may not be in order and they start from most recent to oldest because that's how blogger wants to be lol.

 Riding in the dark.

 Built an arena and will start working on contact when the new bit arrives.

 Bareback and bridleless.

 Riding in cemeteries...

 Alpacas!!!

 Cantering off property.

 Walking on the buckle by horses he's never seen

 (he gets very excited around other horses).

 Hubby rides his bike with us.

 Riding with other horses.

 Heavy machinery is no big deal!

 First time riding with another horse.

 Riding through water (and I got dumped in the pond and killed my camera haha)

 First time bareback and bridleless.

 Working on communication and.... steering...

 Learning how to drink with a rider.

 Riding bareback on the road.

 First ride at our new home.

 Teaching him how to trot under saddle.

 Teaching him humans are weird....

 Learning to ride with a saddle.

... humans are very, very weird.  This was his tenth ride.  :)

Yep, weird.

 His first ride ever!

All of the work I did leading up to the first time I got on him made it a total non event.  :)  I'm not perfect and I'm definitely not the most skilled rider out there, but I'm proud of the (slow) progress we've made.  He is such a great horse and takes everything in stride.  More often than not it is me and my fears that holds us back, not him.  Thanks for the great blog hop Beka!  Also she wrote a how to post on using the blog hop link up if you want to join and are having trouble.  Read it here.