His mash consists of 1.5 lbs of beet pulp which is then soaked, 1.5 lbs of safechoice (a beet pulp based complete feed), and 1.5 lbs of alfalfa pellets, and Platinum Performance vitamins. He gets fed this combination twice daily in addition to the free choice timothy hay. I like this combination for his type of horse, because there is lots of fiber in the beet pulp to keep his guts working the way nature intended. I like to feed it soaked because it makes it a little more palatable, as well as getting more water into him. Especially in a new place where the water tastes different, I like to make sure he is getting enough to stay hydrated. The alfalfa pellets also have some fiber, but is also a good source of protein and calcium to buffer stomach acid. This helps to prevent ulcers, a very common issue in tense horses coming from a track environment. He was treated for ulcers by the woman I got him from, but I want to make sure I'm conscientious about maintaining him. The safechoice pellets are a beet pulp based feed by Nutrena that contains vitamins and minerals to fill in any gaps in nutrition and get extra calories into him. I feed the Platinum Performance vitamins because I know they cover additional elements I like to address. These include a balanced ratio of omega 3 and omega 6 fatty acids to help with inflammation responses, additional essential amino acids so that he can build muscle and gain weight appropriately, as well as other nutritional support for hooves, coat, bones, and overall health. Lest this sound too much like an advertisement, I should mention there are many ways to get these pieces of nutrition to a horse, this is just a tasty combination that I find works well for many of my OTTBs. If I have a horse that needs additional supplementation I address it as needed, and some horses don't need nearly this much in addition to their timothy hay.
Now that he's eating well and drinking, I took him out and tied him so that I could groom him and do a cursory evaluation. I brushed him, shortened his mane, and cleaned his hooves. He mostly stood quietly for grooming, he was just very alert to the other horses and attentive to what I was doing. He did act concerned when I tried to trim his bridlepath behind his ears with scissors. I'm not sure which part of it worried him, whether it was my hands around his ears, the sound of the scissors or the tugging on a piece of mane. He was just lifting his head up higher and higher, so I put my mounting block near him and climbed up on that. He then stepped away from me, so I got down and scooted the block towards him with my foot. That startled him and he reared up and pulled back to get away from this scary thing. Apparently we need to do some work with the mounting block! I had him tied with a contraption I like to use precisely for these kinds of things. It allows the horse to pull the rope through the ring without ever hitting a solid point, so he didn't panic because the rope slid slowly through and as soon as he stopped pulling the pressure stopped.
To let him see I wasn't going to give up, but I don't fight with horses either, I just kept my hands on him at the top of his neck until he stopped shaking his head and he took a deep breath, and then I proceeded to shorten his mane all the way down his neck. When he realized I wasn't going to argue with him and that it was no big deal, I went back to his bridle path and he stood just fine for me to trim it.
Then I took him to the round pen. I initially thought I would just hand walk him around a few times because I was warned that he is quite herd sour and would panic if he thought he couldn't get to the other horses. He was pretty jazzed up, though, and wanted to play. I decided to turn him loose for a few minutes, and he really let loose! He ran and slid to a stop, ran the other way, used both his left and right leads. I let him run a little bit, and I could tell he was starting to relax when he took some deep breaths and had a good roll in the sand. Then he began to look for his new friends out the gate, and so I called him back to me before he had a chance to get anxious about where the other horses were. He understood what I wanted and came right to me. I had him back up a few steps to give me room, and then I led him back to the barn to be groomed again.
It was a good first session. As I've written in other recent blog posts, when I have a horse that is somewhat aggressive or dominant I'll sometimes leave him alone in the round pen for a time until he gets worried that he's alone. Then I go back and "rescue" him so that he sees me as a leader with the power to separate him from and rejoin him to the herd. With a horse like this one, though, it's better not to put him in a position to become worried, that way he begins to see me as a security blanket that will keep him safe.
It was a good introduction for him to the routine of a workout at Bit of Honey. You come out of your paddock, get groomed, go to the round pen or arena, then back to be groomed again and have a cookie, and finally you are put back in the paddock. He watched me work four other horses before him this morning, so he had an idea of what to expect. Because of that, his first session with me wasn't too stressful. He's definitely sensitive and concerned about what might be coming next, so this adherence to routine will be really important for him psychologically.
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