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Travis lunging Oakley with a bucking saddle! Today the guys moved the horses to a holding yard that is located on the way to work! All they have to do is help the rancher repair a shed that was damaged in a storm and the horses can stay there rent free!

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Well, Clancey is no longer a stud. He took the long ride into the Equine Hospital for his surgery. There is a rule at the stables that either he would need to be gelded or moved when he turned 2. He will be 2 years old on April 2nd. Since he is not going to be a very big horse, Travis made the decision to have Clancey gelded. Clancey is supposed to be exercised twice a day for the next couple of weeks, to help eliminate any complications.

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Travis, Tony, Katy, Rusty and I arrived at the stables at a little after 4 this afternoon. It was Travis' day to ride Lucky to the palm and back, so I asked Tony to help me get Oakley out of her pen. I wanted to take her for a walk! Our walk was peaceful, she moved when I moved, stopped when I stopped, turn right when I moved toward her, and turned left when I turned away from her! I knew that she did this with Travis or Tony, this was the first time that I had taken her for a good long walk and we enjoyed it immensely!!!

Tony and I looked toward the palm up on the hill and could see Travis and Lucky walking along the horizon, just a spec against the sky moving toward the south past the palm heading to the 30 ft inclined sloped that was part of the "training course". When Travis and Lucky reached the incline, Travis said that Lucky just stepped off and down the incline without hesitating and dropped his haunches to slide down to the bottom. The training course is 2 miles long and has a lot of obstacles to overcome. Moving oil donkeys, raised oil pipes, ravines, rabbits, ground squirrels and dirt bikes, to name a few.

After my long walk with Oakley, Tony took her and lunged her in front of the pens. She has a smooth gait and switched directions with just a little coaxing. When Tony put Oakley up in her pen, Belle was taken out to be lunged in front of her pen. She might be little but she sure has a huge personality. She had been pouting in the pen when Tony was working with Oakley. Now she was smiling and switching directions left and right as she was told!

By the way her ears were moving I could tell that Travis was getting close to home with Lucky. Sure enough Travis was coming around the track where he rode Lucky back to his pen and tied him to the fence. While Lucky was tied to the fence, Lucky started pulling on his cinch as if to start taking the saddle off! John waited for a little while before he fed Lucky, waiting for him to cool down and help him not get "barn sour"!

While Travis was taking the tack off of Lucky, Tony took Belle over to the back of his truck to see if she would step up into the bed. She lifted her front legs like she wanted to, but she just wasn't tall enough to accomplish the feat.

Travis in the meantime had taken Clancey out of his pen, they were heading to the round pen for his nightly exercise, with Katy in tow. Clancey is a little swollen and the exercise would help bring the swelling down, helping the incision to stay open and drain. He worked well in the round pen, switching directions with a spin, I caught one of those spins on camera! After his twenty minutes of exercise, Travis took him back to his pen, only to continue on over to Cahlibur's pen to get him out a little bit.

As I got back around by Lucky's pen Tony was asking Coal to step up into the back of his truck! Coal had long enough legs and plenty of trust in Tony not to ask him the impossible. I was starting to run out of memory card by this time and was having a hard time getting the camera to take the pictures when I wanted them, but I was able to get a couple of Coal with his two front hooves planted in the back of Tony's truck.

By the time Travis took Cahlibur out into the field to let him roll it was getting quite dark. It was time to feed and head for the house. What a wonderfully, peaceful time at the stables!!!



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