Lady Arwyn, The Gorgeous

She's home!!

And probably hasn't stopped eating since. She didn't even pay any mind to the dozen people greeting her by the fence. Because she's fabulous and she knows it. 

 The Queen has even made herself comfortable in her corral, affectionately named The Palace. 

We put a chair in the pen, and saw her first mustang moment. Snorting, wide eyed, flighty stance, and within a minute she was over it and eating hay again. She's drank, and not done too much investigating, mostly because she hasn't looked up for more than a few seconds. 

 The Queen has also earned herself a name. Lady Arwyn. She is named after the strong and beautiful elvish character in Lord of the Rings. Her curly ears and truly noble nature requires her to have a name fit for royalty. I will call her Arya for short. 

 In all the hubbub, she ended up right up next to me. And just like that, with twenty minutes sitting quietly, she reached out and touched my boot with her nose. Not exactly how I imagined I'd first touch her, but it's a cool start to our little journey! 

I will be spending the night, and will come and go as the night goes on. Tomorrows goal is to touch her little lead. I am confident in her and in our ability to make progress. 

 

 

Till tomorrow!

-Allie

Dear World, She's Perfect

    Wow.

After pulling out my hair all night crazy wondering what I was picking up, we finally have her. 

And she. Is. PERFECT. 

From her the tip of her pretty little nose to the end of her perfect jet black tail. I could not be happier with my pick, she is exactly what I had dreamed of. 

 The tag to pick her up.

I cannot speak highly enough of the staff there, everyone was excited and enthusiastic, as well as kind, efficient, and helpful. 

 She came out of pen 71, where she was with another competitors cremello gelding. 

"Oh I know this horse." I don't know if this was a good or bad statement, but it certainly came out of the nice gentleman who was to run her down the chute. 

But to my relief, there were no High Ho Silver moments, and it didn't take them but thirty seconds to get her down, halter on, and into the trailer. Did I mention, she's perfect?

I think I'm going to call her Taney, after the USCGC Taney, which my dear grandfather captained from July 1980- May 1982. The boat is now docked in the Baltimore harbor where the public can tour. It is a powerful, beautiful ship, and is only fitting for the little mustang queen that I'm hauling.

 I even got a chance to say a little hello. She's certainly not sure, and snorted at me like a dragon, but never uncocked her hind leg and licked and chewed as I moved away just an inch or so. She has the most beautiful curled tips on her ears,  her brand is much tinier than expected. I'm hoping that once we get to brushing that I'll be able to see it better. 

Hi hooman.

But, down to real basics.

Tag #: 1462 2010

Color: Brown

Age: 2 

Gender: Filly

Capture Location: Fish Creek, Nevada

Capture Date: 02/16/15

Markings: Star, snip, and two white pasterns

Amount of Perfect: Out of this world 

She is quietly nibbling hay while we drive the highway, watching cars go by like the perfect little queen that she is. 

Ride strong!

-Allie

Road Trip!

Here we go! 

We gave the truck and trailer one last wash before heading out. We even made it out of the house at 9 o'clock on the dot. This may be the only time we have ever left for a trip on time! 

We had a rocky start to our morning, two of our hens passed away presumably during the night. They were a couple of golden girls at a little over 7 years old, but it's still sad to see two good little friends go. Maryland was rainy, cold and wet when we left, so we set out with morales a little low. 

But luckily enough the weather here in Virginia is a beautiful 82*F with blue skies and green trees as far as you can see!

 

 

The outpour of support as I am setting out on this journey is just phenomenal, I couldn't ask for a better community to do this with. I can't wait to get pictures and videos up ASAP of the new member of the family!

For those of you who don't already know, we will be based out of Safe Haven Farm for our training. Safe Haven specializes in the rescue and rehabilitation of horses from slaughter, as well as others in need. The best way to describe it is as a small barn that does very big things. They have a huge amount of experience and knowledge that will give me a solid foundation to start my training towards this competition, as well as giving us (the mustang and I) a chance to educate as ambassadors for the Mustang breed. 

Our Set Up

We are heading home with an awesome set up to settle in at, as well as start up our training!

 The living pen, where the Mustang will spend its first few weeks or so.

The Round Pen: there has been more footing since this photo was taken, but this is where most of our initial groundwork will happen. It is right across from the other pen, and we can create a chute from A to B so that I can have more room to get work done. 

Both pens were modeled by Safe Haven residents Misty and Butterball. 

Tomorrow is the big day! Please stay tuned for updates and the first round of baby pictures!

Ride Strong!

-Allie

T minus 1 day Until Pickup

                                                          So many emotions

So lets start this blogging journey with what's about to go down.

The Purpose of the Youth Mustang Makeover, taken from the EMM website:

"The mission of the Mustang Heritage Foundation is to increase the adoption of BLM-housed American Mustangs through innovative gentling (training) competitions and awareness programs. In keeping with this mission, the Youth & Mustang Challenge program has been created to place yearling Mustangs in adoptive homes. These events involve youth (8-17 years of age) in the training and adoption of Mustangs 12-24 months old. Participating youth help promote the adoption of these national treasures by showcasing the Mustang’s value and trainability. The program is also designed to help youth build and improve their horsemanship skills and life skills through competition."

I will be picking up a two year old (rumor has it) Saturday morning that I will have 100 days to train. After that time period we will go to the makeover where we will participate in a Handling and Conditioning class, Leading Trail Class, and a Musical Freestyle. After the competition baby-stang will come back home with me, and will be a permanent member of the family.

Tonight I loaded the trailer with horsie necessities (hay, bedding, water, etc), and the truck with my own (coffee, coffee, coffee...)

The rig awaits (and is a mighty good looking one if I do say so myself)

We will hopefully be leaving between 8-9am tomorrow morning to make the 8-ish hour drive to Knoxville, TN. This will give me plenty of time to pull out my hair wondering what I've gotten myself into, and what on earth I'm about to load into the trailer.

Saturday morning we will drive another half hour from our hotel to the pick-up location, where (hopefully) we can arrive at 7am. Seven is a lucky number, and I can use all the luck that I can get.

I'm hoping to get some cool GoPro video to post of the whole experience, which I will promptly post on all social media accounts.

As soon as I get there, and all appropriate paper work is filled out, I will receive my number. With a corresponding number I will find my horse. A total stranger and new best friend. I will not find out anything about the horse until I lay eyes on him/her. I will not know color, age, sex, personality, where they came from or their favorite flavor of ice cream flavor. It's just going to have to be a big surprise.

Look out for travel updates tomorrow!

-Allie

Mustang or Bust

So hereeeee we gooooooo!

Today I finally received my acceptance-email congratulating me on being chosen as one of the Youth and Yearling participants in the 2016 Virginia Extreme Mustang Makeover. I literally can't even contain myself, I screamed a lot internally, and maybe a tad externally, but today is a crazy, crazy good day.

Now there isn't very much to say in this post, except shaking out the writing cobwebs and kick starting the whole blogging artistic process. Also so I can mark this day down in history as the day I actually chased, caught, and ran away with a dream.

So the main purpose of the blog will to be to document and share the progress that will take place from the beginning, middle, and end of the competition, as well as checking in beyond the competition. I am sure the little stang and I will get into some pretty interesting situations. So stay tuned.

Now all this being said, I will be picking up baby-stang in Tennessee on the 29/30th-ish. One of the two. Details aren't entirely clear as of yet, mostly because I just got the best email ever and then rushed to right this post... sorry not sorry. I have as much clue as a hillbilly on a space station as what I'll be picking up. A baby fire-breathing dragon? A cool cucumber? Maybe a little jester? We'll wait and see.

I think this is one surprise I'm actually pretty excited for. Forget senior week and beaches this summer, this, by far, is the coolest thing I could ever do on my way out of high school. Of course my time will be consumed by not only juggling barn work, lifeguarding and training the baby-stang on a time budget, but I will also be maintaining my riding on my not-mustang gelding Justin (a.k.a the love of my life). My summer is p.a.c.k.e.d.  I will also include J-Dawg in my blog-posts (since he's a big part of the family, and will be baby-stang's 'Older Brother' ;)   )  So prepare yourself for chestnut sass! Justin, and the baby will be at separate stables until the end of the competition, when baby-stang will move to home-base with Justin and I (also two minutes away from my house) where they'll both live until I move off for college. (When they'll probably move with me too!)

 (Unrelated gif is just for kicks)

More blog posts to follow as we prepare, as well as when I get more information, and very very very soon go to pick-up! Maybe I'll actually post pictures of my actual horses instead of these lazy gifs ;)

Till next time!
-Allie