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.