Winter Changes, Training and Trailering

My Fjord, Freya, left the cold, snowy mountains last week to a warmer spot near Albuqerque for the winter.  She is at Katy's so she can keep up her training and improve over winter.  She is at that difficult age right now, between 4 and 5.  I've been commuting a fair amount to ride her and have lessons.  Katy is also riding her.  Freya has been at my place in the Jemez Mountains since she was 5 months old.  She needs to see other things and different environments.  At Katy's there are many other horses, lessons going on, riding in the arena, dogs, farriers working, vets giving shots and so forth.  All this is part of her training.  She is fascinated by other horses.  We have 3 others at home but they are old hat.  All these new ones are so interesting.  A closed stall was a new experience for her too.  We have an open barn at home where she can go in and out as she chooses. At Katy's she is surrounded by 3 of her new boyfriends in her stall so it is a very interesting place.  She also thinks of it as the restaurant since there is almost always grain or hay in there when she is returned to it.  I rode her quite a bit this past year including trail riding and she was very well behaved for the most part, but had a tendency to bolt on rare occasions.  Hopefully this will be corrected.

 My Appaloosa's trailer training was interrupted by all this because we left the trailer at Katy's.  Mike was here to get her in the trailer and he did.  It was no problem for him and he got her all closed up in there and she was totally convinced she would rather be in the trailer than out of it.  I also got her in while he was there.  The next day I got her in but she wouldn't stay long enough for me to get the butt bar up or close the door, so she could use a little more of Mike's training but it will have to wait until we get the trailer back.  The weather is getting so lousy here anyway, spring will be much better.