Baby April, Part Two

When Baby April left the breeding farm in PA near Baltimore, she went to Maryland (less than an hour away) where she lived for about a year with one of my trainers.  The day we went to pick her up since she had never been off the farm, had never seen a horse trailer, we brought a pony with us to ride with her.  April literally walked on the trailer, neighed once and started to munch hay.  She has never had issues trailering, even by herself at an early age.  I also body clipped her at 18 months just to see how she would handle it - could have cared less, a good sign!

These photos were taken about 10 months later, in the summer, during a visit.  In the summer months she
turns golden and then a deep blood bay for about a month before her winter coat starts to come in. She is about 18 months in these photos and she already larger than the other young horse she lived with who is a year older:

When she was two I moved her out to the boarding barn where my other horses lived in Western PA. She lived there for two years not counting the times she went out to "school."

At age 2 1/2 I sent April back to Maryland to be broken, to a local trainer who mainly broke racehorses.  He told me she was one of the easiest horses he had broken and I came and picked her up after two months (instead of the usual three) and I rode her myself for about a month before it got cold.  Here are a few shots taken around that time, at the boarding facility. Notice her tail; until very recently about 1/3 of her black tail was vanilla in color.  It was striking and I was hoping that she would not outgrow it, but very recently she did.



This photo is in the summer, so this must have been around age 2 1/2.  Notice the big ears.  She gets that from her mother.  Her star and snip also come from mom.  That is me holding her:

She is well over 16 hands and is not even three years old.  When she was three I sent her back to school for a few months (from March to May) to a trainer in Pittsburgh who worked on her flat work in a huge indoor.  She is pretty uncomplicated, just strong, even today.  Here is a photo from that period:

She is getting really big by this time, and starting to fill out.  She stayed in Pittsburgh for a bit and then I brought her back home where I kept her going until December of 2009, when she went back to school again!  One thing I will say about her is that even though she is huge, she is like a giant puppy dog. She wants to be hugged, kissesd, brushed and of course, fed!  More to come!