Jack has arrived

Jack arrived safe and sound yesterday at about 1pm. He came off the float no worse for the wear which was predictable considering he is a good traveller and it was only a 20 minute journey. We put him in one of the newly built pens while we tied up the loose ends and I signed the purchase agreement. Once he was signed over and his previous owners left I took him for a walk around the grounds. He was pretty well behaved; he grazed a bit but spent most of the time looking around at his surroundings. After our walk I put him back into a pen and went to get my grooming gear. When I opened my grooming box I found that my first aid spray had opened and spilled through everything so I had to rinse it all out! At least any bugs on the brushes would have been killed. After I groomed him my friend Melissa and I took him for another walk around. Everyone who saw him asked all about him and commented on how gorgeous he was.

He went back in the pen for another little bit while I rode Summer, one of Sue’s (my old instructor) horses. I just took her around the arena a couple of times for fun. Soon it was time for worming. Jack resisted a bit but not for too long. He really has no ground manners though. This showed more and more as the day went on. I did know about it when I bought him. I will have to work on them quite a bit. He spent a lot of his hand grazing time trying to drag me along. I backed him up every time he tried. At one point when I was taking him to his paddock he got pissed off at me when I wouldn’t let him get in front of me so he did a few nice bucks on the end of the lead. I quickly got him to stop and backed him up some more and he settled down. I don’t accept behaviour like that so I will be working hard on his ground manners.

When I put him into a paddock with one of the other newbies he gave her a few sniffs and they soon trotted off together to the hay at the end of the paddock. When I left him he was eating happily.

So I’m off to see him again this afternoon. Tomorrow is the first rally of the season but I want to give him a couple of days to settle in so I won’t be riding him until Wednesday. I didn’t get any photos of him yesterday because I was too busy trying to do other things and since the weather is appalling today I don’t think I’ll try but hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday.