Jenny continues to work with India and after some round pen work, we moved out to the big pasture. India's mentally made some leaps forward in the last month or so. She gets tacked up while tied in the barn, she was very soft when doing rope work on her legs, and overall she's growing up. At the same time, and not captured on film, she still shows that she's a baby. This morning she got a little pushy and resistant to moving forward during ground work, so Jenny backed up a bit and stuff that we were doing 8 months ago was done again: moving quietly and with a nice expression away from Jenny. After a few minutes of attitude adjustment, India was moving nicely around the round pen. It's tough being an adolescent!
India heard either a noisy motorcycle or a car engine being revved up from out near the main road. This put her on high alert.
Jenny and India trotting nicely through the field.
We did a little trotting, also.
I rode Wendy, Jenny's mare out to the field and the first time we moved cows, I was still on Wendy. Wendy is an old pro at it and this was my first time and India's, so it made sense to put me on a horse that knows what she's doing and for Jenny to be on India as she's an old pro at it, too. India took right to it. According to Laurie, India's daddy is very much cow bred. It shows as India thought it was cool. She was not afraid of the cows and seemed to understand what we wanted her to do.
Then we switched horses and I got on POTU. Here we are moving left behind this calf in order to move it right.
Moving cows is done slowly. Walk towards the cow, put pressure on them, get them walking in the direction you want and then back off the pressure. Running cows aren't good cause then you have to run, too. This momma cow had one suckling and three or four other neighborhood kids hanging out with her. They were aways from the main herd, so they were perfectly set up for moving.
After we finished working with the cows, India was still interested in them. Very encouraging.
It costs $40 to pay a farrier to trim India. Thankfully, I can do that myself because 11 years ago I went off to Kentucky and attended the three month course at Kentucky Horseshoeing School. I don't shoe anymore, but I can still trim. Here I am rounding the toe, which increases her breakover. With a shorter toe, India can more easily move her foot from flat on the ground to up in the air. That moment in the stride where the horse moves from touching the ground to no contact is called breakover. Long toes means there's more to get out of the way and more tripping.
And here I am filing the sole of her foot. As expected, she was uneven as the growth patterns aren't even. It all depends upon how the foot lands. She was high in the heel and toe and the quarters were lower. I rasped the high parts to bring them even with the lower parts.
I'm too old for this and my hips are too dodgy to do this on a regular basis, but every six weeks for POTU is fine. This is the first time I've done her since she's kept her feet worn down on her own, until now. Three weeks ago I noticed that her toe was too long and her heels beginning to break down, so time to trim. Trimming after her lesson when she's good and tired is the time to do it. Also, all the rope work Jenny has done on India's legs by roping the fetlock and asking India to softly give her foot to the pressure has helped, too. India was pretty darn good about keeping her legs where I put them.
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