Recapping at five months

At some stage we thought that three months was not an unrealistic goal to be able to throw the saddle on and go for a ride on our brumby.


After three weeks I actually managed to test out all kinds of different saddles on her and she had no problem with any of this. We walked around the paddock together with the stirrups dangling on her sides, no problem.


How come that after five months I feel that I’m going backwards instead of forwards?

A whiff of Brandy

Brandy has been fine with Sam our dog whenever he walks with me tidying up the yard. Unexpectedly the other day Brandy decided to have a closer-up look at this tiny Dane sized ‘horse’. Which kind of unnerved both Sam and I because for Brandy closer-up is really quite in your face, and she’s not small.


Sam has a quirky habit of jumping up with all fours at once when he plays with Baileys. Sam’s playful leaps clip Baileys’ ears or ruffle his mane, which our little stallion takes in the good humour as it is intended. I wasn’t so sure how Brandy would respond to a dog hurdling himself up at her throat with a grin the size of a Dane.


Sam wasn’t either so he decided against it. Pfewie. My heart rate slowly returned back to normal over the course of the rest of the morning. Later in the afternoon Sam must have thought, you started it, when he leaped through the electric fence to go and have a closer-up himself. Or so he thought.


Before he could even think, I go and have meself a little sniff of Brandy, she was onto him. Baby, was she onto him. That dog rocketed back so fast that I never even saw him move from A to B. One moment he was heading up towards Brandy, the next moment he’s safely panting his little heart out right next to me on the other side of the fence.


Brandy’s frolics managed to half heartedly tempt him to get back in but in the end we all sat back and watch Brandy run it off. 
She doesn’t mind charging either, our brumby. In a closed up paddock with nowhere to go, in the end she just goes for it; thumping hoofs, bristling manes, smoking nostrils, the works.
I like.

A different breed

Over the last few weeks the most progress I’ve made is due to my very deliberate ignoring of Brandy. This has resulted in her following me wherever I go, pleading for my attention. 


Terry’s long pep talk the other night really boosted my confidence and put a lot of things in perspective. In hindsight a lot of things have become much clearer. It really makes all the difference to talk to some one who has experience with and understands brumbies. Their body language is so much more subtle than domesticated horses. Annie also managed to make me see the whole ‘breaking-in’ from a fresh perspective. She mentioned the infinite patience which Terry seems to be able to apply and how different personalities deal with the horses differently.


Just exchanging our (mainly mine) frustrations and little victories (mainly his) relaxed me enough to come up with a few fresh angles and approaches to work with within the next few weeks.

Bikies It’s been nearly five months

Next week it’ll be five months. Brandy and Baileys are getting friendlier every day. He has become her refuge when all the ‘baddies’ are out to get her. Such as the motorbikes. We barely hear the punk kids passing on their bikes every now and then a few streets away. For Brandy however this is a RED ALERT which makes her kick, buck and gallop around the paddock till she finds her refuge Baileys. We figure that she may have had a few run-ins with bikies in her wilder years out in the Toolara Forest. 


In the end it is all about exposure. Every single time she is exposed to a what-she-thinks-to-be life threatening event, she does what all decent flight animals do. And that is, run for her life. However, every single time this perceived life-threatening-event turns out to be OK-ish, her reaction gets tempered a little bit.


This is becoming more and more obvious. Not from day to day but thinking back over the four and a half months there’s been massive progress. I read somewhere that Richard Maxwell found that a horse needs to be exposed over a hundred times to the same ‘threat’ before this becomes normal to them.

Nearly four months later

Brandy has been with us for nearly four months. I don’t know if using my friendly aid, the little stallion, is considered cheating a little. But because Baileys and I have grown quite fond of each other over the last year, Brandy is now equally eager for some of my attention and instead of me having to coerce her, she now waits in line for attention.


Man, this is good!


Haven’t done much at all for the last month or so yet made stacks of progress because of this little fellow. He has been quite a handful himself in the past but that’s a different story.


The desensitising is quite a large part of the training and obviously takes a lot of time. Brandy clearly needs to absorb and process each and every new sound, sight or smell a number of times before she’s OK with it. Looking back from four months ago till now, we’ve come a long way. In the early days, the only movement Brandy didn’t react to were the movement of clouds, wind, birds, hares and leaves, anything natural. By now she’s added lawn mowers and whipper snippers, loud music, playing children, pool noises, all kinds of different engine noises and whiffs of back burning bushes and wafting bbq’s. She’s  not even jumping anymore when my sister is trialling her new exercise regime of rocketing down our drive way on a mini skate board.


So yeah, we’ve come a long way. 

Three and a half months later

Plan B quite unexpectedly included spending very little time with Brandy for the last month. Which turned out to be just the right thing.


Baileys (our miniature stallion) begged us if he could please spend some more time with Brandy. Initially she snubbed him but when the tree lopper’s chain saw got going, Baileys became her refuge. Our neighbour’s weekly test of the roaring jetski motor saw her running to him for cover as well and within no time we found them cuddling up together at night. Baileys has become Brandy’s measure-of-normal.


Over the last few months Brandy has come to appreciate our neighbour’s love of rock and roll music. Like us, she isn’t that much into it but it doesn’t make her gallop to the end of the paddock any more either. But it is Bailey’s behaviour which teaches her that banging noises on shed walls and motor bikes and kids on skate boards and builders with rock grinders, annoying as they may be, are equally innocent noises.


It is Bailey’s rock solid, even-tempered and composed presence which calms Brandy down each and every time a new noise, sight or smell presents itself.

Not quite but nearly three months later

Calypso has gone back home and Brandy is now well and truly setting the pace.


For plan B I’ll be drawing on all my resources, my friend Terry, Richard Maxwell and contemporaries and ‘The Ten Steps” given to me by my mentor.


Really what I’m coming to is that it’ll be easier to follow Brandy’s clues than setting my own schedule. On the days we’re good, she pretty much does whatever I ask her, within reason. But there’s still the odd occasion where she treats me as if I am a stranger, ouch.


I’ve learned to recognise that when Brandy is already stressed even ten minute sessions strain our friendship. I’ve noticed that already without my input, she’s learning so much every day, the sights, sounds and smells of our laid back neighbourhood are clearly a little overwhelming to her at times. But whenever I put no pressure whatsoever on her we can hang out for ages and it’s all good. 

Plan B

We are grateful to the good forces in the sky for keeping us all in one piece. Just a few scrapes and bruises .. pfew. An outta control 350-odd kilos randomly flying around the yard and no one got seriously hurt; that must have taken a whole stack of guardian angels for sure.


We got the message, we heard you loud and clear Brandy, you don’t want us to get on your back .. as yet.


First words out of sis’ mouth were, “How did I look, how did I look?” After carefully considering the response she decided that horses aren’t on her to do list any longer, so we’re moving on to plan B.

She’s a dancer.

My sister once more leaned over Brandy, only this time putting her full 61 ½ kilos on the horse with her right foot in the stirrup and for about one milli- second, all was well. Next moment this horse which I was gently going to lead around the paddock for the very first time with a rider on her back, arches her back sky high, aiming for the moon.  Near enough simultaneously sis is passively embracing the rocks underneath Brandy whilst pressing her cheeks deeply into the soil. Meanwhile a voice from the side lines is urging us to Get the hell out of the way.


My sister’s elegant nosedive is followed by a swift scramble through the electrified fence to the edge of the paddock as I also run to make place for this impromptu break-dancer. 
Ace performance. Back arched, manes, nostrils and stirrups soaring through the air with her feet barely, if ever, touching the ground. Just a whirlwind flying through our paddock. It seemed to last for an eternity. I don’t know if the on and off leaning into the electric fence spurred her on or eventually slowed her down. But we mainly credit her visiting friend, Calypso the gelding, for telling her that, enough is enough. 


Eventually her pupils returned and the white of her eyes, by now a little bloodshot, disappeared. She had had a good workout. Hell, we’d all had a good workout. 


Maybe the extra 40 kilo’s my sister put on since our childhood years made all the difference, or have I lost my touch already?

Riding to the bay. 5 ½ weeks

Today my sister decided to ride Brandy to the Bay. I told her that Brandy is not ready but she insisted. She also insisted on going bareback and I guess that I should have left it at that but I figured that it would be more comfy for Brandy to have a saddle on her; not that I expected them to leave the paddock together.


I walked Brandy around with the lead, saddle and the stirrups and she was surprisingly fine with it all. I told my sister to put some pressure on Brandy’s back before actually mounting her and she leaned over her and all went well. I then suggested that she shouldn’t put all her weight on Brandy to start off with and she promised that she wouldn’t.


This took us all the way back to our childhood years were we would ride the wild horses on our property.

Still figuring out the amounts.

Brandy is not too keen on the sulphur, it makes her pull faces and spit. I try it on Baileys first who is about half her size and Brandy tolerates about one fifth of what I put in his food. Talk about being fussy. She loves the hay, chaff, oats and copra. She’ll pull up her nose if I put as much as a smidgen of anything else in it. So, yes, I’m still working on that and figuring out the amounts because I rather keep the flies off her by putting stuff in her feed than continue to put brut on her.

New gear.

Baileys desperately wants to be her friend. Brandy is more interested in the ducks and hares skipping around the yard and me opening the garage door. Whilst initially she would dash all the way to the other end of the paddock, now she is doing quite the opposite. The sound of our garage door means company and food and she loves both.


Whenever I get a chance I eat my lunch and breakfast with her and our other pets all sitting out in the paddock. Brandy, me, puss, dog, pony and the other day our puss’s pet snake baby brown. I reckon having Brandy watch me play and hang out with our other pets all makes a difference.


Brandy is helping me purchase our new gear too. Initially I offered the fertiliser for free to our neighbours which they politely declined. Since I put the bags of poo up for sale at two dollars a pop they are selling like hot cakes. Bought me a new girth and lead rope already. Aiming for a new saddle next.

I’m no Guy McLean … yet .four weeks

OK the dates are all over the shop, what with all the excitement and that but the truth is that after three weeks and three days I managed to put a saddle on her. So Guy McLean does this in half an hour, well I intend to improve but for now I’m happy with three weeks.

Before we managed to write up an official training diary; Brandy comes when I call her, I can lift up her front feet and stroke her pretty much all over. I kinda hung over her a bit the other day to see what she would do and she looked around with a big question mark on her face. That was it. She’s cool as a cookie.

This weekend we were supposed to be riding her; that was the plan. My sister once more was going to give it her best shot; this time around, no halter, no saddle. Just rider and horse. It didn’t take long for Brandy to charge her, which was fun to watch from outside the fence. But by the time they finished playing, no one got to ride her.

It’s been three weeks and three days – Week Three part Seven

Today it’s the 23rd of the 8th month and actually exactly three weeks and three days since Brandy arrived. Today I managed to test out our three saddles (keep an eye on other people’s bins) to discover that my one girth is either too long or too short.


As long as I let Brandy smell everything before I put it on her back, she was absolutely fine with it. She’s now also equally happy with me patting her or giving her chaff. 


Y E A H ! Three weeks and three days!! I also got to measure her and she is the exact size we’re looking for at RDA.



Brandy still looks suspicious at a carrot or a bit of lettuce. Baileys happily shows her what the deal is but she prefers the hay and the chaff.

When Brandy arrived we had a paddock filled with grass. We soon discovered that Brumbies like to roll .. a lot. She pretty much rolled the whole ¼ acre and we’re looking into adding some fresh pasture. Our neighbours generously allow Brandy to roam on their property and all we have to do is add a few more pickets to get her more space and food.

Who’s teaching who? - Week Four part Four

I discovered that there is a few more days left in this week. I intend to focus on her coming when I call her. I’ve noticed that she is very deliberate and takes her time with everything. In the wild there probably is not that many second guesses and she’s learned to get it right the first time. It means that when I call her, she doesn’t come up running, but she’ll think about it. She’ll look around and have another little chew here and there and then maybe, maybe will make her way over. I intend to speed those responses up by disappearing when she doesn’t respond within a certain time limit. We’ll see how we go with that. I don’t want to confuse her either.


I’ve been watching Brandy and Baileys checking each other out ever so graciously and very courteous and I don’t want to be found out by them to be some slow learning klutz.

Still naughty - Week Four part Three

After four weeks I’m still doing the naughty thing and handfeeding her. She follows me wherever I go regardless if I have food on me or not. When I feed her, she wraps herself around me and when I push her away she’ll continue to come back leaning into me. I know, I know, bad habits I have to train out of her next. We do what we can. Her ears don’t go back so often anymore and I can clip her on whenever I want to. When she’s on the lead, she’s good. I can check her hoofs and touch her nearly anywhere so that’s massive progress. The other day I managed to put a natural saddle pad on her.


I’m happy with the progress we made in four weeks. With many thanks to all my support people and resources. Next week I’ll come up with an official training plan.

Our goals - Week Four part Two

The long term goal is to have Brandy as a happy RDA horse and no longer a wannabe. Short term goals are for her to come when I call her and to be able to  put a saddle on her. I just have to figure out how to do that. Up till now I have mainly been studying her behaviour and building up trust. It has become much easier to study her now that she’s in the paddock with Baileys and I can and see from a distance what’s going on. 


I’ve also actively worked to steadily increasing her responsiveness. She now stops when I go, Whoow. That’s kinda cool.

Resources and helpful friends - Week Four part One

It’s time to put a training plan in place and I’m going through my resources. If it wasn’t for Terry’s ready availability on the phone .. Thank you Terry! My coaching mentor last week lent me two fantastic books on horsemanship’s and she is watching with interest. Another friend from RDAQ (State Head Office) is very encouraging and brought me in contact with the Northern Territory RDA centre. They have about six brumbies, some coloured; nice going. My family and neighbours are all supportive with time and materials where needed.


Today Baileys met with Brandy’s back hoofs and is keeping respectful distance. Brandy has a lot of food in her paddock so we decided that they should share. She’s happy to share her food but nothing else with this raring to go little stallion.

I could’ve .. Week Three part Three

The lunging is part of our dance, determining who is boss. She’s still figuring it out and it is my job, in the nicest possible way to let her know, that I am the matriarch. I probably should have left her alone after the excitement we had earlier on. But after she settled we were all very relaxed and it felt like I could have climbed on her back then and there .. but I didn’t.


Every meal time I sit in the paddock with her and she comes close and loves the company as long as I don’t try to touch her. We’ll see about that.

Friends? Week Three Part Two

She lunged at me. I thought that we were friends. Man she looks mean. Her eyes and nostrils are massive. Honest I think she spits fire too. She grew about 3 feet when she lunged and yeah I don’t have to put up with that crap. I told her too. Like I jumped back at her, after I scrambled out of the bushes I’d fallen into.

My mum says she loves her fluffy ears, yeah whatever.

Sisters .. Week Three Part One

My sister was gonna show me how to break a brumby, by simply jumping on and riding her. The lead rope never made it any further than the side of her halter and then my sister let go. Brandy flew around the paddock with the rope dangling off the side, chasing her, as far as she was concerned. She bucked and reared and kicked and flew and bucked and reared and kicked and ran. And I stood there praying and thinking off all the ways to eliminate sisters from ‘helping.’

Discouraging flies - Week Two Part Three

As Baileys is whinnying over the fence to his new found friend we add another name to the mix; Brandy. So now we have Brandy Toolara Nutmeg the Brumby.

I finally manage to put Brut on Brandy, scrape off the bott flies and discover what to put in her food to discourage flies.

Vitamine B, apple cider vinegar, garlic and sulphur. I am still figuring out the amounts.

Horse etiquette .. Week Two Part Two

There’s a lot of flies around annoying her and she won’t let me near her again. “Terry, help, what can we put in the food to keep the flies of her?”

Terry tells me to continue ‘getting in her space’ and putting pressure on so that I can clip her on the lead rope once more. 


I’m now, against all rules and horse etiquette hand feeding her.
She likes that. Me too. 

Don’t worry .. Week Two Part One

Ok, I managed to put the lead rope on once. But it sure didn’t make her happy.


Lucky for me Terry phoned the next day to see how we’re doing.


‘Terry, she looked at the lead rope, seeming to say, “What is that thing you attached to me?”’


Terry said, “Don’t worry, it’s OK to put a little pressure on her.”


Next day I managed to sneak the rope on her again and yes finally we are walking around the paddock together.

Meet our stallion - Week One part Three

Baileys Mangojam Foursocks, our piebald stallion miniature pony, overnight has run a trench as deep as himself. After a long night of sustained effort we can just see his ears bopping up and down as he continues to scale the fence in his failed efforts to say hello to the Brumby. We are relatively relaxed seeing that the fence is about a foot higher than our pony and him jumping that fence would indeed be a world record.


Overnight, Baileys has lost about 10 kilos where it was desperately needed to go and our Brumby is now in season.

This is gonna be easy - Week One part Two

Terry delivered her to our property on the 27th of the 7th month 2010. He had spent a couple of weeks halter training and desensitising her. She easily moved off the float and Terry showed us how well behaved she was on the lead.

Terry had put in the hard yards. This was gonna be easy.


Next day, she didn’t agree.


Me halter trained? What is that thing hanging of your shoulder?


So we’re now a week later and she still won’t let me approach her.

Brandy the Brumby

Brandy the Brumby the RDA Wannabe.

Training diary

Brandy the Brumby - Week One part One

On the 27th of the 7th month in the year 2010 .. love at second sight.

Like; is that her? 

Then Terry let her out of her pen, and wow she’s elegant. Nice Roman nose too. Aristocratic is the word I’m looking for.

Who is she? Brandy the Brumby. 

Her certificate of authenticity tells us that Toolara Nutmeg is a genuine Australian Heritage Brumby captured in the wild in Toolara State Forest in South East Queensland on the eight of the fifth  month 2010.