https://padlet.com/OTTB_lover/OTTB2_training_blog_help Made with the strength to succeed. My name is Willow Mcburnett and I just wanted to share everything I learned through training my OTTB (off the track thoroughbred) I hope it helps you in some way or you just enjoy our story! en-us 2019-04-11 13:20:01 UTC 2019-05-03 13:28:54 UTC hello@padlet.com https://imgglb.padletcdn.com/v13/image?t=g_auto&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpadlet.net%2Ficons%2Fpng%2F1f434.png OTTB_lover https://padlet.com/OTTB_lover/OTTB2_training_blog_help/wish/351133061 As most OTTB's I thought that mine would have been ridden on the track right? Well as I soon found out I was wrong. Roarie had never been raced nor trained to race so I was kinda stuck with a clean slate. After the first week I realized that this may turn out to be harder than I thought. Roarie was, at first, the definition of crazy. She would run circles in the indoor arena bucking and not wanting anything to do with me. That stage only lasted a little while, she was slowly becoming friendlier with people, but when we tried to work with her she was still a challenge. We worked with her on the lunge line slowly hoping she would calm down. By this point she would trot nicely on the lunge line, but getting her to slow back down proved to be nearly impossible. After lot's of groundwork we decided to saddle her up. She took it surprisingly well and almost seemed calm when working totally tacked up. She took the bit well also and we worked up to lunging with her gear on. Keep looking for the next update!💖🐴💗]]> 2019-04-12 13:10:40 UTC https://padlet.com/OTTB_lover/OTTB2_training_blog_help/wish/351133061 OTTB_lover https://padlet.com/OTTB_lover/OTTB2_training_blog_help/wish/351140356 When I first rode Roarie I had no clue what to expect! I had my doubts, but I also knew my horse wouldn't do anything to hurt me purposely. We started as we usually did with lunging, grooming, tacking up, and lunging again. We walked her around the arena, then to the mounting block, I lifted my foot to the stirrup iron and gently swung myself into the saddle. I sat there for a moment longer, then my trainer started to slowly walk us around. I was starting to relax, and Roarie was doing REALLY well. She didn't even flinch. When I got off I was ecstatic! Roarie had been amazing (even though this had all been on the lead rope it was a start) keep watching for the next update!💗🐴💖]]> 2019-04-12 13:27:00 UTC https://padlet.com/OTTB_lover/OTTB2_training_blog_help/wish/351140356 OTTB_lover https://padlet.com/OTTB_lover/OTTB2_training_blog_help/wish/351953989 On Roarie's 15th something ride she realized that she could object to what we were doing, she had known so little when we got her that she didn't know that she didn't have to do what we asked her. When she realized that she could have a say things became slightly more complicated. Things that once seemed easy were now a challenge, she threw her head and swished her tail when only asked to go into a trot. Things slowly got easier when she learned that fighting us only made things harder on herself. We build our work on the partnership we had I didn't force her to do things and she eventually got over fighting me for little things. Now this doesn't mean she's done, this isn't even close to fully trained, but it's a promising start. 💞🐴💖]]> 2019-04-16 13:09:34 UTC https://padlet.com/OTTB_lover/OTTB2_training_blog_help/wish/351953989