Sunni havin' some FUN!

You know, I don't often post about my horses here because I have a separate blog for them (http:deserthorses.blogspot.com), but my gelding, Sunni, had so much FUN down in the arena today, I just had to post these photos.  He's usually the last horse my trainer works with, so he really doesn't get much time or attention.  But, he's totally trusting with me, so I try to work with him whenever I go visit the horses.  I can pretty much do anything with him, except ride him, and I'll be working on that this summer.  He now trusts my farrier (a man) and he LOVES the ranch owner, Bill.  He's the "babysitter" for the little colt in the corral next to him.  For a long, long time after I got Sunni from United Pegasus, I often had the feeling that he really didn't know how to act like a horse.  He probably didn't.  He was the unwanted byproduct of a mare who was bred only to harvest her urine and he was plucked from her quickly and stuck out in a field with other babies.  So, he wasn't socialized properly.  I'd often look at him and feel that he really didn't know WHAT he was.  He bonded with me, however, quickly, although for a couple of years he REFUSED to go through a gate (I have NO idea what that was about...).  My cousin spent one summer saddle breaking him.  I told her to NEVER take him up to the arena alone, which of course, she did, and she rode him and he bucked.  She ended up being thrown against the metal round pen rails and bruising her ribs.  Thus, his training came to a halt for a year until I found my current trainer.  Maia comes once a week, stays for two hours, and works all 5 horses.  But, Sunni always seems to be last.  He has broken 3 halters now and has "escaped" several times from the tie rack.  One time, he ran headlong through the neighbor's barbed wire fence and stood trembling in their yard.  If I had been there and seen that, I would have fainted.  It happened on a school day, and I wasn't there (thus sparing me from having a heart attack).  He was a bit cut up, but his physical wounds healed.  The mental ones...well, we're still working on them.  I took him to the tie rack today and just stood and talked with him and he was fine, but I didn't TIE HIM there.  We just don't do that yet.  I did walk him over to the arena and lounged him and desensitized him with the lead rope, then let him have some play time.  He really enjoyed his time there and the colt whinnied to him the entire time!  I think he missed his babysitter!

And, here's the little colt who he babysits: