I have an amazing story about Socs. He’s the PMU horse (Pregnant Mare’s Urine) that is bay with four socks. He participated in the Get-Together with the Paint, Picasso (both owned by Ann Clifford and she’s developing them into Therapy horses). Well, October 25 those two horses were led in the Get-Together. Picasso was almost capable of being off lead… sort of, but Socs was ions away from “freedom” (or so we all thought). Two days ago Ann Clifford wanted to show Bill, Lindsey and me Socs and his tricks. He was OFF lead, rolled the big ball, picked up the ridged ball and carried it to a “goal”, picked up three of the stuffed toys out of the “bunny box”, one at a time.

He followed Ann where ever she wanted him to go. Did the turn on the forehand in both directions, got up on the tall pedestal. It was amazing!!! This is the horse that got a rider off (at his home prior to coming here) and went through the fence with the people standing there in complete shock. This is the horse that bulled through people. Did not respect anyone’s space. Now he’s having a wonderful time playing with Ann. Bill stepped in and played with him and Socs accepted this new human without blinking an eye. I showed her the first few steps of bowing on one knee and he was very receptive. He sort of learns before I’m able to show him what I want. This horse has learned how to learn! Ann accomplished all of these things in less than two months. AND she probably only gets a chance to work with her horses a few days each week. She spends lots of time free in the paddock grooming them, massaging them and managing to NOT be stepped on. When you have two horses free and both wanting attention it’s difficult to see all of both of them at once…thus increasing the chance of a hoof finding your foot.

The tenth anniversary for us at Winsong Farm is February 15th. That’s a Monday. We’re going to CELEBRATE on the 14th!!! There will be a short series of “look at what MY horse can do” in the arena, then we’ll go to the house to thaw out! I’m figuring that there won’t be any riding because it’s difficult to schedule practice times with a guaranteed temperature above minus five. But no matter WHAT the temperature each horse and person can do something at liberty and/or tricks.

We’ll do a BIG celebration when the “good” weather comes.