In which Ben is surprisingly adaptable

Ben moved to the GY's on Tuesday after our jump lesson. It had been in the works since I purchased him, but his ::ahem:: lengthy abscess saga had delayed it. I LOVE JT and Ben LOVED being there. But it is 45 minutes from my house. We may yet spend some of the fall or winter with JT so that we can be in twice weekly lessons or training rides, but for the heat of the summer, we're settled back in at the GY's. With my late night work schedule, being able to get up at 9 or 10 and be at the barn 5 minutes later is awesome. 

Ben loaded right up into his fancy box stall trailer. He came to me really good about loading then went through a short phase of needing a tap with a dressage whip, but now that I have made the trailer suit him, he is back to walking right on. He eats hay when we're stationary, but I'm pretty sure he travels slanted backwards, like the general internet says horses prefer to ride. 

When he arrived, he didn't even have his back feet off the ramp before he was head down in the grass. NOMS. We put him out in the 8 acre field and left everyone else in the barn yard. He was remarkably sane. Everyone in the barn galloped around like loons, but he did some trotting, a brief canter, and then mostly ate grass. 

Introductions to others + to electric fence 

My friend said he looked blue roan in this picture... You too can have a blue roan if you mix sweaty bay with sugar sand! 

Grazing after our ride yesterday

He went out by himself Tuesday and then got introduced to Mr. GY's horses on Wednesday. They made an adorable little herd of bay TB geldings. He had been by himself in the small pasture overnight, but last night apparently decided he was part of the herd and started pitching a fit when the others went out front. Ms. GY put her gelding in the barn yard to keep him company. Initially her gelding was charging at Ben over the fence, as he does with new horses, but Ben was not impressed especially on the other side of the fence. By the morning, they were scratching withers over the fence. 

This morning they went out together and there was ZERO drama

We added Ms. GY's other horse to the mix this morning and again there was very little drama. Her horse mostly just wanted to sniff Ben's butt. Mr. GY's older gelding was pushing Ben around a bit, but he doesn't do anything more than pin his ears. 

We're going to put Mr. GY's younger TB back into the herd tomorrow, then they will be one happy herd all together. We took him out for the intros this morning because if anyone is going to start running, it will probably be him. 

Overall Ben has been SUPER good here. There's a lot to look at and neighbors through trees doing things, so I was expecting him to be a bit up, but he has been really very focused. We took a short trail ride today to the hay field to do a trot set. He was PERFECT for that. It did take us... 3 times as long as it should to walk back up the 8 acre field to the barn. We had started out tacking up with Ms. GY and I think he was looking for her horse the second we got back in the field. We just did a lot of turning around when he started to prance down the field and then a few halts until he could actually sigh and relax. 

In annoying news, my dressage saddle STILL makes his back sore even after several adjustments. Everyone agrees it looks great on him, but his back disagrees. So just working in the jump saddle for the time being.