Fancy Update: 30 days Training!

Yesterday marked 30 days that Fancy has been at the reining trainer up in Maryland. Gma Kathy and I took a road trip up to see her progress...We missed a turn along the way and had to straighten ourselves out, which was GOOD thing....when we got back on the right highway, we ran smack into a multi-car pileup! We must have missed it by the exact amount of time it took us to make that wrong turn and then get back on track...talk about SCARY! Gma Kathy is a nurse, so she got out of the car to administer aid, if necessary, to the man trapped inside the overturned vehicle....seemed like forever until a police officer arrived and took control of the scene...and the paramedics still had not shown up by the time we left.....I hope everyone was OK...



Back to the subject of Fancy....the rest of the road trip was uneventful, and we arrived at the trainers safe and sound....we met with assistant trainers Wayne, Billy, and Julian for a bit...then Julian went to go get the princess from her stall to groom and tack her up...she was sweet and quiet as ever...one of the first things I noticed was that she was not pacing her stall as she did when I left her....so it seems she has settled in nicely....she still appreciates her hair done too!




Once tacked up, Julian made his way to the indoor arena for her daily work-out....some noticeable improvements were her more immediate transition to the lope and "Whoa" when cued....great progress! One thing on the not-so-great side is her apparent disdain for other horses in her personal space...we expected to learn a little more about her personality as her training progressed, and this is just one of those things....when in close proximity to another horse in the pen, she pins her ears in a defensive manner....although ugly to look at, she did not take it any further to bite or kick at the other horses, so we all feel that this is something they will work out in training by riding her in lots of 'traffic' (around other horses) as often as possible...overall, I was very pleased with her progress....Julian is doing a great job so far!



Here is video of Fancy working to the left....



Here is video of Fancy working to the right....



After her work-out, it was back to the barn to un-tack...


And then back to her stall for some R&R....she walked right into her stall (the same stall we had to back her into when she arrived due to her protests) and started picking at some hay on the ground....



Looking forward to our next visit in another 30 days to see how much more she has learned!

Happy Trails,
Leah