New digs and an old friend

Rory and the other two year old

 Today was sunny, cold and rather windy.  Looking at the forecast for the week I had decided that Wednesday or Thursday would be my best bets for taking Rory over to the new barn. It's close enough that we can go for a walk down the road, but I was a little worried about the wind, and Rory's tendency to just decide he's leaving.  He's been really good at home, but the escape at the vet clinic put me on edge again for any abnormal situation.  Walking down the road definitely counts as that.  The wind had me considering waiting until tomorrow, until I remembered that Thursday is garbage day around the barns, and if the wind didn't drop we'd have a lot more things to scare Rory.  So today it was.

I stacked the deck in my favour as much as I could.  I still have the first longeline I ever bought - a heavy cotton one.  It's not really very good for actually longeing because of the sheer weight of it, but the thickness and weight lets me get a good grip on it which made it a good choice for taking Rory down the road.  I had the longeline snapped to the rope halter, and a short nylon lead with a chain.  He wore his nylon halter under the rope one and I wrapped the chain over the noseband just in case he blew off the rope halter.  For a little protection for him I put splint boots on all four legs.  It seemed a bit silly, but if he'd jumped and bumped himself with a hoof I would have been really mad with myself for not putting the boots on.  I left his turquoise rainsheet on as well to make us more visible to traffic.

I was a little nervous setting out, and Rory was hyped up by the wind and unusual activity, but off we went.  The actual journey went quite well.  Rory stopped and looked around a couple of times, and I stopped him several times so he could turn and look when vehicles came up from behind.  The little bouncing, yapping dog was a little unnerving, but he settled quickly once we were past that house.  The cow in a field on the other side of the road was pretty scary.  The wind was blowing right from the cow field towards us and Rory didn't know what to make of the strange beast.  Again he looked, hesitated, jogged a bit but listened to me and walked safely onwards.  At the corner Rory received enthusiastic whinnies from the ponies and horses who live there.  He whinnied back once, and pushed into my space a little bit as he drifted closer to the horses.  I had no trouble pushing him back out of my space and we proceeded down the road.  The last stretch was the busiest and the narrowest road we travelled.  At one point a furnace oil truck came barrelling along towards us and slowed down before he got too close.  I waved thanks as he passed, and Rory barely looked at the truck.

It was with relief that we turned down the driveway to the new barn and navigated past the icy puddles and out to the barn.  Rory's old friend - the other foal born about a month before Rory lives at this barn and they're going to share turnout space again.  The other two year old spotted Rory and whinnied at the new horse, and Rory whinnied back.  It seemed as if they recognized each other and kept calling for a bit.  I stripped the nylon halter off and took Rory over to the gate to see the two year old and the older horse that will be his new herd.  The three nosed each other over the gate, and Rory moved away when the older horse pushed so I took him into the paddock and let him go.  Rory wanted to stay right beside me as the other two mobbed him and I ducked out through the gate pretty quickly before they could start shoving.

Rory got out of their way.  The two year old pushed a little bit, but it seemed that he was happy to have a horse he could play with.  The older horse told Rory he was boss hoss in this group a few times, and every time Rory said "Yessir!  I'm getting out of your way!" without hesitation.  He came back to me as the other horses backed off a bit and I took the front boots off, then after they'd run a bit more took the back boots off as well.  I did put his halter back on for the hind boot removal.  I took a bunch of pictures and shot a couple of minutes of video as well.

Before I left Rory was starting to play with the other two year old, and going to the hay when the older horse wasn't eating.  He was looking around at everything, and was clearly a little worried about the change, but wasn't being silly about it.  Rory's the easy one - I knew he'd just get out of the way of the other horses, but Brat's past that point and I'll be a little more concerned about how he integrates into his new group when I bring him over in a few days.