Girl's Night!

More of a girl's afternoon I guess. 

What do you do when you only have half an hour to spend at the barn with your filly?

Braids!

I know that there are proper ways to braid a horse's mane. There are supposed to be an odd number of braids . . . or maybe an even number? Either way, I didn't pay any attention to the rules. I believe you are also supposed to alter the size/number of braids in order to accentuate the horse's neck. Again, I didn't put any effort into the rules of braiding. I just wanted to have some fun fooling around with my mare's (glorious!) mane. I love how thick and long Ava's mane is, especially for a three year old. Since I bought her, the ends have sun-bleached from black to a bright coppery color. I certainly do not love it any less! 

Braiding Avalon's mane did serve a few practical training purposes. First, it gave me an excuse to spend time with my horse just hanging out. I believe it is really important to be around horses without riding them, or expecting them to work. Gambler and I spent two years on the ground before I started riding him. Our training benefited from that relationship. I have already ridden Ava a couple times, but I want to take time over this winter season to build that bond with her. When things get dicey, I want to have a sense of trust between us to fall back on (not literally I hope). Second, braiding requires Avalon to stand quietly. When I bought her, this was one of the things that I knew we would have to work on. She has improved over the last few months, but still needs a lot of practice. I purchased a tie ring a few months ago that has been helpful. I'll be posting about it in the future. 

The forelock braid ended up sideways. I blame the impatient youngster for moving her head around so much.

I decided to leave the braids in for a night, mostly out of curiosity. Avalon was a little spooked by them at first. When I let her back out into the pasture, she cantered around shaking her head to get them off. Eventually, she realized they weren't going anywhere. I was glad to see her calm down so quickly. In a minute or two, she went from trying to buck the braids off to yawning over and over as she released tension. She really is a level-headed baby horse.