Hunter

Meet Hunter!

Hunter joined us a couple of months ago. He is a four year old gelding that we bought at a local sale. He is a lovely guy, and Mark hopes he will be a good horse for him to have fun with and maybe take elk hunting in the future.

I have played with him a number of times, and he is a fast learner, but so far he flips between right and left brained behaviour pretty frequently and we don't really feel sure about what his innate horsenality will turn out to be. He is certainly a lovely mover, though, and has a nice nature, so that's a great start.

Although we saw him ridden in the sale ring, we have not been on him yet. I feel that he lacks a little bit of confidence (quite a lot of confidence, actually) and that both horse and human will have a happier experience when we have the communication better established. I would like to treat it as a "re-start" when the time comes, even though I think that he will be pretty quiet. However, if it suddenly feels right to hop on, then we won't make a big deal out of it. Right now he loses it pretty easily over certain kinds of commotion. Tossing the rope over his head or swinging it like a helecopter are enough to set him off, and his default it to run.

He is certainly making herd life more interesting, though. All the horses here are in their early to mid teens. Hunter isn't too impressed with their daily agenda of just hanging out. It's been funny seeing him trying to stir up a little action, and I'm hoping that he and Bruce will eventually play, but so far I haven't seen much of that. Perhaps now that the weather is cooling off things will change. Ducky has been staying at Linda's house while she concentrates on her L2 and has frequent classes with Kime Conkright, so it's worked out well for Dakota, who now tends to pair up with Hunter.