TOABH: 18 on the 18th.

I'm so late on the final installment of Beka's blog hop!  Oops!!  First of all, happy birthday Archie!! It's been great fun celebrating with you.  You did a really good job with the blog hop Beka and I've enjoyed it a lot.  :D  I think this one is my favorite!!  Warning, I may have overdone it on the pictures!!

ETA:  I decided to add a list of all the posts in the blog hop.  I managed to do every single one and I'm a bit sad it's over.

18th Before the 18th
Making of the Horse
Shining Star
I'm a Loser, Baby
Fave
Wish We Could
Sugar Momma
Worth 1k Words
Self Actualized
Idiosyncrasies
A Rose
Costly
Ermahgerd
Fail
DTR
Metamorphosis
Introspection
18th on the 18th

For the final blog hop she asked us to tell her 18 things we love about our horse in honor of Archie's eighteenth birthday!

1. I love his gorgeousness, especially his white eyelashes and dapples (finally! been waiting a long time!).  His conformation may not be perfection, but it's just what I like.  I said I'd never own a gray, but I love watching his color change every season!

 White eyelashes!

Dapples!  I need a current picture.  They are showing up better as he sheds.

P.S.  I'm not shallow or anything, I just put appearance first because I saw a picture of his white eyelashes as I started my list hehe.

2. I love his smile.  My (and his) favorite trick I ever taught him!

 3. I love his personality, curiosity, intelligence and his obsession with men's beards.

Beard!!

More beard!!

Playing hide and seek!

Goofball!

Seriously, who wouldn't love this nut?

4. I love his training and that I did all of his training myself and only three other people have ever been on him (hubby twice, farrier twice and best friend once) and that he's the first horse I ever clicker trained. I love how great he is to ride no matter how long he goes between rides and doesn't have to be longed.  Also his eagerness to learn new things and how quickly he picks up new things with clicker training.

 This is training, yep!

 Surcingle training preps for...

...first time wearing a saddle...

...desensitizing to trash bags...

...and pulling things!

 Even baths are training.

 Tarp training.

 Desensitizing to four wheelers.

 Is this training?

 We miss our pedestal training.

 Also miss our Chase the Tiger training.

 More tarp training.

We've come so far all on our own!

5. I love his height.  I always thought I wanted a really tall horse, but I now appreciate an average, perfect 15.2hh!

6. I love his gaits, especially his huge floating trot and when he flips his tail in excitement.

 

7. I love that I've known him since he was five months old, so I've been there almost since the beginning of his life.

Five month old cutie pie shortly after I brought him home.

8. I love that I bought him the same year I was married, so he's sort of a wedding present!

Best wedding present ever! 

This is me walking him off the trailer when we got home.

Ignore my tacky outfit.

9. I love that he's not at all what I had in mind before I found him, but now he's my dream horse.  I wanted a 16+hh black purebred Friesian gelding and I ended up with a 15.2hh gray Friesian/Arabian gelding.  So I got the gelding part and halfway got the Friesian part lol, but he's perfect for me just the way he is.

 Chrome's Friesian sire Jan is what I dreamed of...

 .... but Chrome is my dream horse!

Love him!

10. I love him more than I've ever loved any horse I've ever known... more than I ever thought possible.  He's shown me what a true heart horse is.

11. I love how talkative he is and his deep, studly neigh.

12. I love that he comes to me in the pasture eagerly and happily at a gallop and stuffs his head in the halter.

13. I love his ground manners!  He will stand tied all day. I can deworm him, groom him, clean his hooves and fly spray him loose in the pasture with no tack or rope.  I can lead him by his chin with no tack or rope at all (I still want to teach him to lead by his mane/forelock like my mare did growing up, but for now the chin works). I can take him for walks out on the road (and it's more fun than walking a dog!).

Deworming loose in the pasture with no tack.

14. I love that he is an easy keeper and can be barefoot, but he's the first horse I've ever had to blanket lol.

 15. I love that he looks great roached (which is good since he rubs it out!  I'd be so sad if he had an ugly neck and I had to roach him lol).

He can totally rock the 'hawk.

16. I love that he trusts me enough to let me approach him while he's laying down.

Naptime selfie!

17. I love how much he loves to be groomed, especially since I love grooming horses.

18. I love all of the firsts we've had together!  He was the first horse I bought on the internet based only on pictures and video.  He was the first horse of my own that I backed to ride all by myself (I started horses for other people, but never my own).  I was the first person on his back.  On and on!

This is the picture I bought him from when he was four months old!

The first time I ever sat on his back!

 He's the first horse I ever moved to a different home with.

This was his first (or maybe second) day in our new home.

 First horse I've ever led from a four wheeler.

 The first tail I ever braided.

 Our first tackless ride together.

 Our first ride with another horse!

 His first time seeing Alpaca.

First time cantering him off property.

That's just to name a few of our firsts.  :D  It was so hard to pick only eighteen things!  I kind of bunched some together hehe.  This was so much fun!