Over the last 12 years, we have saddled (or re-saddled) over 130 horses here at SAFE. As the saying goes, the Trojan Horse wasn’t saddled in a day, and the same is true for the vast majority of our herd. Each and every horse is put through their groundwork paces before we even think of cinching them up for the first time, and more often than not these paces are closer to a ultramarathon than a sprint. Months, and sometimes even years pass between the time we meet a horse for the first time and the day we saddle them.
All this to say, on the rare occasion we get to saddle something that doesn’t come with a whole lot of baggage, it feels every bit the treat it is.
Alvaro, having arrived at SAFE last year, young and without a lot of prior handling, is one such treat. He has spent the majority of his time with us simply being a horse, growing up (and filling out). Apart from a few introductory groundwork sessions last year, the majority of his education has been by other horses.
That has clearly suited him just fine. When we knocked the cobwebs off him several weeks ago, he picked up right where he’d left off — as a mellow youngster who didn’t care much about the flag or the rope touching him, even in his more ticklish spots. A few practice tosses of the saddle up on his back were also not a big deal, all good omens for a successful and non-eventful first cinching.
And as you can see, it was just that. Alvaro didn’t break a sweat walk-trot-loping with this new weight on his back, and after, moseyed back on out to the pasture, probably to go share with his friends what a cool guy he was now (more realistically, just to eat some grass).
In our world of troubled horses, it is so often difficult to reach this milestone, and so we are immensely grateful when we get the chance to work with a colt like Alvaro. He is a nice horse in every sense of the word!
