Chip the horse

After talking to people and letting them know I wanted volunteer hours they didn't hesitate to give me things to do. One of the first things on my to-do list was Chip the horse. He doesn't have that much experience and is considered green. Naturally the challenge excited me so I got started right away. She didn't know his history so I pretended like he didn't have one. Almost right away I could tell he was left brained. Doing things mostly completely opposite of Annabelle. Like coming to me, having these gorgeous circle games with no brace, not being able to go more then a couple seconds without playing with something, and being social. I saw some introvert but some extrovert. He didn't mind moving his feet and its harder for him to stand still verses to go forward. I played all 7 games the first day and got on bareback with my halter. Day two I did 7 games and practiced stick-to-me at liberty. Then I did some riding- right off the bat I could tell he was a show pony at one time in his life. He had the 'kick to go and pull to stop' luckily having no brace really helped me teach him about what my legs and body meant and he naturally wanted I follow it. Yesterday I kept my reins on- built my confidence at the canter an then used two carrot sticks with the reins off. We were in the arena for a while then we went to the obstacle course then on a trail ride. I only had to use my reins once so today I took them off. In the arena first then the obstacle course. He is SO much more relaxed its amazing. He finally found someone who understands him. I'm really happy. And I'm on to the next 'problem' horse at the barn. I still plan to play with Chip to continue filling the holes in his foundation (mostly on the ground) and hope to get some really nice liberty going. :D

Now for Annabelle's foot update- personally I don't believe it's terribly bad and that I need to shoe her this instance. But I also don't want to be wrong. So I'm being careful with it for now. I'm doing a soak in apple cider vinegar and water. Then wrapping it in a diaper with coconut oil I will only be wrapping for a couple days because I don't want to wrap for too long and then when I take the wrap off it cracks the rest of the way. PLEASE if you have experience with a crack similar to this one let me know what you did. It's not through the hoof wall and you can't even tell on the bottom of her foot that its there.