New Horse Evaluation

I have a new horse that arrived for training this week.  He is another OTTB who is owned by a client, and I did the first "getting to know you" session with the horse this afternoon.  To start, I took him out of his paddock and tied him for some grooming.  He seemed somewhat anxious and testy, threatening to bite and kick me while I was grooming him.  Careful to stay out of the range of impact, I ignored it, and just studied him and his behavior while I curried, brushed, and cleaned his hooves.  He watched me cautiously, like he was puzzled by my lack of reaction and he was evaluating me.  This first session with a new horse is partly for me to assess and get to know him, but it also feels like a job interview where he evaluates me and decides if he wants to work with me as well.

Once I had him groomed I took him to the round pen.  I let him loose in the 100' pen so he could check out my toys and the obstacle course, but after a cursory sniff at the muck bucket he began to race from one gate to the other calling to his friends back at the barn.  They all ignored him.  The horses in the front pasture could see him from the round pen's north gate, and they ran around a little while he was all worked up.  After a fast lap or two they ignored him as well.  Then one of the afternoon's sporadic rainstorms moved through, wetting down the horse, both dogs, and me.  At that point I decided to go back to the barn to get my jacket.  The horse was still ignoring me and just running around the pen, so the dogs and I all went together to get my jacket.  Now the horse was really alone.

When the dogs and I went back to the round pen just a few minutes later, the horse was still anxious, but was at least looking for me.  I went back into the pen, and I held the lunge whip to give myself a larger appearance to him.  He resumed running, but now he had one eye on me.  When he would run too close to me I would hold out the whip and he bumped into it with his shoulder or haunches.  He threw a couple kicks in my direction as he bolted past several times.  The dogs were keeping out of the way, they realized he wasn't going to play tag with them like some of my other geldings do.  I continued to watch him, and after a few minutes of this he became curious and puzzled as to why I wasn't reacting to his antics.  

I took a deep breath and a few steps backwards.  He came to a halt and stared at me.  I muttered to him that he could come with me if he wanted, and I walked away from him.  He followed me.  I took another deep breath and stopped, and he stayed by my side, stopping as well.  I walked, he walked and stayed by my side.  I did a couple very tight turns, pointing with my fingers which direction we would go, and he did precise pivots on his haunches to the left and to the right, taking deep breaths himself.  We walked together like this for a few minutes, and then he started nuzzling the ground.  I paused and watched him, and he laid down right next to me to roll in the sand.  He laid down so closely I could pet him from where I was standing.

After a good roll he got up again, and resumed following me over the tarp, the bridge, and in a complicated series of turns, starts, and stops.  I had nothing attaching him to me, my rope was hanging at the gate and I just held the whip so I would appear large and if he did kick I could place it between us.  He did everything with me with a curious expression on his face, and while he stayed a respectful distance from me (about an arm's length), he seemed much more interested in me and working with me.  He laid down several more times to roll, never bucking when he rose, never pinning his ears or kicking at me.  A couple times I walked away from him abruptly, and he stood with his head up, staring at me wondering why I'd left him.  I would gesture to him to come towards me, and he immediately would approach me calmly.

After a few more minutes I reattached his lead rope and we walked back to the barn.  He followed me calmly, watching the dogs walking by our side.  I retied him and repeated the entire grooming routine.  He stood quietly, never fidgeting, with his ears forward and attentively watching me the whole time.  If I walked away from him to get a different brush out of his bucket he would take a step towards me and check to see which brush I had chosen.  He never flinched, never showed me his teeth, never considered lifting a leg to kick.  He did look a little puzzled about me and my atypical human behaviors, but he seemed to have decided I might be reasonable to work with. 

When he was all cleaned up I put him away in his paddock, and even after taking his halter off he followed me back to the gate.  I left the paddock and latched the gate behind myself, and his two next door neighbors came to the fence to talk to him.  The three of them sniffed each other having a little conversation, almost as if he was telling them about our session.  There was no squealing or stomping as they had been doing earlier, just quiet nickering and talking.  Suddenly all three of them froze and turned their heads to stare at me, like I'd come up in the conversation.  I swear they may have been discussing what an unusual human I was.  I felt quite peaceful, since my first time working with each of the two mares years ago was similar to how this gelding was today.  The three of them went back to discussing, and then the mares returned to their hay.  The gelding came to the fence to talk to me a little more, asking if I would lip wrestle with him (I politely declined).

It was an interesting first session.  I feel partly that I was getting to know him, and partly like I was on a job interview and being evaluated.  It's nice to feel like I passed.