Sugar for My Honey
2004 Chestnut Mare

Sugar joined us in December, 2008 and was just about spoken for by the time she made it to Georgia.  I met her new mom Julie on the internet about two weeks before we went to New York to pick up Sugar's bunch (Makwetti, Gebb's Flag, and Distinctive Eyes), and she had pretty much decided on either Sugar or Eyes.

Julie and her father made the trip to Georgia from Alabama about a week after the horses arrived.  She spent a few hours Friday evening and a few more Saturday morning with both girls before deciding to take Sugar home. 

Sugar is on the way to being an eventer, but is also working on being a hunter.

Update December 26, 2008:

Hey! She's doing great.
     When we got there, I turned her loose and all she did was walk around and look at everything.  So at first she was nervous in her run-in pen (we put her in there for grain time) because she couldn't really see any other horses, but she's settled in and not nervous in it anymore, and in a week or so, two brood mares will be coming to share it with her so she won't be alone.  The first night, we tried turning her out with 4 boys (it was the only herd with room) but they bossed her around and she was stuck all by herself.  So we swapped her with Tilly into Tilly's herd, so she's with 2 mares now, and one is bossy, but she loves the other one, so it'll work out better for her there (plus Tilly likes bossing around the boys).
     I've longed her twice, but the arena has been pretty wet.  I also noticed that when I go to work her, she was so busy looking around at everything, so today I worked with some treats and I definetly had her attention.  I did some groundwork stuff with a saddle on her today with treats and she was definetly paying attention and learning more.  Like she'll back up when I shake the lead rope a bit, will walk/trot/halt both directions (on a shorter line, not a longe line), and I worked on getting her to lower her pole some (since she's always standing so tall!)
     So she's defintly getting used to everything and getting less nervous, and I think we're definetly going to get along, and she's started coming out of her shell and showing me some of her personality.  The first few days she would make me walk behind her to catch her, but now she looks up whenever I'm around and likes to be caught (I've been doing things like catching her and petting her, then turning her loose again.  Today I caught her to try on a blanket, then turned her back loose).
     So everything's going really well and she's eating all her grain and hay and grazing and seems to be happy!



Update January 22, 2009

 Hey!
     I was just sitting around and decided to send you an update!
     Well Sugar's finally settled in.  The first night, we put her out with 4 boys, but they chased her around, so I swapped her into a herd with 2 other mares, and put my mare in with those boys.  My girl handled the boys fine, but my boarder had a hay bale put in the pasture, and Tilly got F.A.T.  So we eventually swapped Sugar back in with the boys.  She's holding her own now, they'll play with her and follow her when she wants to run around, they let her eat hay and get water and all that.  And she's even started putting her ears back at them!  Shocker haha because she was so timid at first.
     Sugar's finally gotten used to her pen (she would throw fits at first because sometimes she couldn't see other horses, but now there's 2 horses permenantly close to the pen), and I threw her Tilly's jolly ball the other day to keep her busy and she immediately started pushing it around! (Tilly would just ignore it).  Her ground manners are amazing.  If anything, she walks too slowly now.  When I get her out of the pasture, she sits around and looks where I'm pointing, like "Why do you want me over there?"  but even barely 3 days of simple parelli stuff has worked wonders, she's Very good about not getting ahead, knows how to change directions, and back up and all.
     She doesn't kick her nervous leg around anymore haha, and that rain rot is alll gone, hair is growing back.  Her only problem left is, when she's nervous, she sticks her head WAY up (you probably remember), and I've worked on lowering her pole a LOT [on the ground], so as soon as her head goes up, I can pretty much immediately get it back down.  She'll probably grow out of it.  But the roof in the barn is low, and one time I had her crosstied and she brushed her ears on the ceiling and scared herself, broke the cross ties (and hit her head about 5 times in the process; every time she'd hit it, she'd bring it back down then hit it again, silly girl), then walked off.  She did it again recently too, only I got her before she walked off.  The good thing is though, she doesn't /freak out/.  She never associated hitting her head with being crosstied, so no lasting damage! (except a few bald spot on her head haha). Lately I've been ground tying her, and just attaching 1 cross tie if I have to walk off, but I've also been working on lowering her head, so I don't think she'll be breaking them anymore.
     We've got her on a good amount of feed, 1 1/2 sweet feed+Strategy and a pan of beet pulp, and I can't really tell, but she might finally be starting to fill out a bit (in her barrel, her butt is still skinny as anything).  I've kind of noticed something though, if I walk her across gravel, she looks /quite/ ouchy.  Very sensitive.  Right now we've got her on lightweight steel in the front, barefoot in the back, and my farrier's doing some corrective shoeing.  I'm hoping that the corrective shoeing, plus her good steady diet and a bit of hoof supplement might take care of that ouchyness.
     As far as riding, lately I've either been busy with class, or it's been pouring or too cold to ride (we have nice weather on the days I have class, of course...).  But after our first few rides, I decided to put her in a regular bit (I put her in an eggbutt with a copper roller on it) with a flash, and drawreins.  I've ridden her in them 2 times, and they have been miracle rides.  The first time, she started responding to suppling and would drop her head for 1 stride at a time haha, and they also helped with her shouldering-in habit (she likes to pull on one side of a circle, and cut off the other half [I free longed her in a round pen once, and should probably do it some more; it could help with her oval-shaped circling]).  Her walk-trot and trot-walk is great, still got to work on the canter transitions.
We've been working on going over poles, I've ridden her over 2 canter poles in a row, and I've worked her over 3 trot poles in a row on the ground.  Once she gets a little more confident on the flat-work and contact and more used to me, she'll be ready to start taking tiny cross rails.  But right now, sometimes she's so busy thinking about how high she can stick her head that she doesn't notice other things haha, so one step at a time.  I've only gotten 1 spook out of her, and it was at the neighbor's goats.  But I took her out on a "trail"
the first time a few days ago [it's just a bunch of big fields separated by trees]! And seriously, she acted better than Tilly.  I decided to ride Sugar in the drawreins on the trail just in case she'd flip out and stick her head way too high to control, but she was Absolutely perfect! Didn't spook at all, was good about staying behind the other horse, and was even focused enough to listen to my seat ques and occasional suppling, she'd lower her head for a few strides at a time.  Who'd ever think a fresh 4-year old would act better than an experienced 10-year old!
     Oh and once I looked at Sugar's papers, I realized that her birthday is a week after Tilly's, So I can throw them a combined "party" :)
     Hope my message wasn't too long!

     Julie & Sugar



Update February 3, 2009

  Hey!
     For awhile I've made videos of my other mare, and stuck them on youtube.  So I made one for Sugar, and I'd like you to see it!  It prettymuch shows how comfortable she is here and how amazing she is doing!

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKR_7dzn-wA&feature=channel_page

     Julie