Ten Dollar Tsar

So I wish I could say I had been doing all of the exciting things, but I have been doing very little. I'm farm sitting and working from 9-9.30am until 4 pm which around the farming isn't leaving me a lot of riding time, because I'm pretty short of daylight. It doesn't help that this is the forecast.

If the zoom on your iPhone can see the snow at dusk, the snow is too close. I'm praying I don't wake up to snow because I'll have 160 cattle and four horses screaming at me for food, and I hate doing more work than I have to when its cold. I also have a sick steer that keeps trying to die on me. Started as a pneumonia type job and got really weak, he has been down a few times but everytime he does I seem to be able to get him back up with glucose water. Maybe its the energy from the sugar, maybe its the water boarding, either way it gets him up. 

The vet came today and with some anti-inflammatories on board he is brighter, which made life harder when I wrestled him onto a trailer and brought him up to a paddock with lots of grass and after the trauma of the ride, he did get off and start eating straight away and he was happy having friends over the otherside of the fence. In my head I'm thinking trailering him like this is some eastern european type shizz.

 Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that the new pony, Tsar, has been nothing but a delightful treat. He is mostly extremely mannerly and a pleasure to deal with. He is very sweet and not a tough horse at all, he may not be gutsy enough to be a top horse, but then he seems like the sort to try his guts out his person. My biggest concern is that he is quite tight in the back left hind, but as he raced for such a long time, it's not surprising he isn't equal. What remains to be seen is if he improves with work.He is a little greener than I had hoped, behind the leg and lazy at the work and trot. He lacks cadence and drive. He is a bad one for falling out and he likes a bit of a woohoo when he picks up the canter. It's nothing major, a jump and a headshake so it doesn't bother me. I love his canter, plenty of jump and so balanced and rhythmic. Funny when his other gaits need work.

And that being said he has been very brave, worked in basically the dark and his basic nature seems to be very good and very straight forward. I'm pretty happy with what I paid for him :)