Take One Giant Step Forward

I'm glad to say that Eli seems to have recovered from his roundpen incident with no permanent damage. Saturday, the swelling had gone down and he was trotting sound again. I was eager to get on his back again, so we worked in the arena at the walk on improving his steering. He did pretty well, but was definitely opinionated when it came to going where he wanted to go! At times, it seemed he was doing the exact opposite of what I asked, just to try to get a rise out of me. I tried not to fall into that trap, but I was also unsure of what to do to get past that behavior. It's been so long since I've worked with a horse from scratch! I found a good place to end our lesson, vowing to return the next day with some new ideas.

Spent the boys' naptime on Sunday watching some old Parelli dvd's. I've done a lot of Parelli-type groundwork before, but never really learned much of the under saddle stuff, so I got a few new exercises that seemed like just the thing to help with Eli's unwillingness to go where I asked. Sunday night's ride was SOOOOOO much better! The Parelli exercises put the responsibility back on Eli to do the right thing instead of me micro-managing every step he took, and he really tuned into what I wanted. He threw one little temper tantrum where he literally stomped at the ground, but I just calmly kept asking him to go where I wanted, and he gave in. At the end of our ride, I was able to steer him with just my seat some of the time, and only had to give the lightest of rein aids. Pretty cool!

I'm starting to feel the time slipping away faster now. We've lost quite a few days to travel, injury, etc, so my plan is to really try to put in the hours under saddle in the next few weeks. I don't expect to make the finals, but I would like to be able to complete a basic course - show all three gaits, canter on the correct lead, work thru some basic obstacles - without much drama.

Lately, every time I talk to someone about Eli, they inevitably ask "So, are you going to keep him?" Before this competition, my answer would've been a clear "No." I did this competition because I wanted to give one mustang a good start and get him into a good home. I vowed that I wouldn't even consider keeping my Makeover mustang unless it was a phenomenal endurance prospect. Of course, now that I'm in the thick of it, it's a lot harder to imagine life without Eli. I'm finding that it's now hard to make the call as to whether or not he'd be a "good" endurance prospect. Ranger is my major basis for comparison, and he certainly doesn't look the part of an endurance horse, but what he lacks in looks, he makes up for in heart, and he continually surprises me with what he is able to do out on trail. Eli is put together better than Ranger, so he's automatically at an advantage in that department. But he is a completely different personality from Ranger. He seems to love being on trail, but does he have the same desire to carry me down the trail for 50 or 100 miles? Maybe my remaining weeks with him will give me a better insight into this.

The other factor at work here is, of course, money. I don't know how much people will be bidding for the horses at this year's Makeover. Last year, many went for $2000-3000 or more. If that's the case this year, how much can I realistically afford to bid? I would love to be able to be completely objective about all of this, but I'm afraid it's impossible. Anyone out there care to give their opinion?