The horse you lead...

...is the horse you ride.

In that vein, I had some fun doing ground work with Sage in the arena tonight. We of course worked on all the basics (backing, head down, yielding the hindquarters, etc). I bet you're tired of hearing that by now! But really, it's all about repeating things over and over until they become second nature. After that, Sage learned how to trot in hand. That may not seem like a big deal, but she is so incredibly lazy and unphased by pretty much everything that it's really hard to get her moving, especially on the lead rope.

But I coordinated myself enough to jog and use the lunge whip (which has been outfitted with a plastic bag on the end just for Sage), flicking it behind her to get her to trot. She was brilliant. Overall she has been getting more responsive lately, and I honestly don't believe this tactic would have worked a few months ago. It sounds weird to say, because you would think that something like this would be fairly easy, but when your horse won't move, it's kind of hard to get anything done at all.

Once we worked with the whip three or four times, I was able to drop it and get to her to trot with me every time I asked. It was pretty exciting. She was so light and responsive! That was where we quit, and then she had fun playing with Gabby and Luna in the arena, knocking down the plastic barrels, brushes, buckets, etc and trying to dig her way into the pile of sawdust. She's just such a happy little mare.

Her winter coat is shedding wildly, and every time I curry her, it looks like someone blew up a Shetland pony on the grooming mat. I love the fact that spring is coming!! Speaking of spring...baby mustang is definitely moving around. It sits more in the middle, up under her ribcage, than on the left where I used find it. Pretty much every time I feel for it, I can feel it moving. What an active little bugger! Poor mare. She pees almost every time I see her; I probably would, too, if I had a baby horse sitting on my bladder!

We are getting prepared for foaling. Although this has nothing to do with the actual foaling process, I stumbled upon this really fun "Foal Color Calculator" found here: http://www.horsetesting.com/CCalculator1.asp

Knowing the colors of some of the other horses in the herd, I've been able to determine that the foal could be bay, black, gray, roan, or sorrel (unless there's a pinto out there, which I don't think there is). Of course, the most likely color overall is bay. I can't even imagine having 3 little bay beauties--this is going to be quite exciting!