First and foremost....

So I've decided to start this blog as a place I can record some of my trials and tribulations with training my 5 year old Appy/Colorado Ranger horse, Pip. aka Sandstone Mirage
I have had Pipper since he was 6 months old, it's like he was a mail order horse. I bought him off the internet, equine.com, for not too much money at all. The breeder was in vet school at Perdue, and liquidating her herd of QH/Appys. I live in Albuquerque, NM. So suffice to say, I only had photos and phone calls to get a sense of him. His Dam and sire are rather mediocre, but their parents were quite the thing. You can look them up under Sandstone Mirage on Allbreedpedigreequery. but his photos were nice, and he looked cute. Plus, my friend where I woud be boarding this fuzzball, had a weanling TWH, and I realized that it was the perfect time to sieze the buckskin, or, Carpe Pipkin.

Now you may be thinking, He's 5, so WTF? why isn't his training done?
Well, I don't have a good answer for that, except when I got Pip, I had an OTTB that I was reprogramming, and so Pip got ground manners and all that good stuff, but no real riding for a while. I sold the TB, Eli, (to a wonderful forever home where I get to check up on him and he gets more spoiled every day) and finally had time for Pip. I had my on business and worked two other jobs, so time was rather precious.
Also, i decided as a re-rider with no money for training, that I could stand to wait a bit, let Pip grow up. Afterall, I'm not trying to win any futurities, and he is stubborn.
Oh, don't worry, I backed him when he was three. He's been ponied out on the trail since he was 6 months old. He trailered, tied, was great for the farrier and vet, I could tack himup, longe him, ground drive him, all that good stuff. I just hadn't ridden him much.
Last year we went out on the trails a lot, through the river and the woods, over hill and ditch bank. He was ok, not great, not terrible. I'm from a H/J background, and as a rather "phlegmatic" kid, I got all the hot crazy horses. Pip ain't that. But I think I was making him crazy. So we took a break for the winter.

So this year, the job is beginning to pay off, I dropped one of the jobs, and I now have the time to ride. And pay for some proper training!
He's had 2 months of training, with me getting lessons on him. We had to stop the training early, as Pip is prone to summer sores, and the training barn was not the best place for me to deal with those. So I moved him back, and I'm riding in a hackamore til the sore on his mouth clears up.

The bad news is he has summer sores, and will always be prone to them. the good news is, for the first time using a hackamore, he was fine. He didn't respect it as much as a bit, but he listened. We're relearning together, how to undo all those bad habits we fell into before. It's hard work, but here we are!