Voodoo is home

We went to pick up Voodoo at the trainer today. He has been there since mid-April. When we dropped him off, he was scared and crazy looking in that his winter hair was only starting to come out. While I have talked to Bobby, his trainer, a few times, I have not seen him since. What a change he has made since then--he is so fit, and shiny and happy. It did my heart good.
Voodoo's mama is Foxy, and this is the first foal of hers that we have had long enough to get trained. She is super cowy, and broke to death, so I was excited to see what she put into her baby. I am in contact with the owner of her oldest foal--Foxy is actually a grandma which freaks me out--and he is a handy bugger. He has never been put to the cows though, so I did not know what to expect of this one when he got the chance.
I am absolutely thrilled with how well Voodoo is doing. He is perfectly happy, willing in every way, and according to Bobby, he has all the potential in the world. He said he was the best I had ever brought him.
The thing that jumped out at me the strongest was how content Voodoo is. He clearly likes Bobby, he wanted to be with him, and you could tell it. That is a huge endorsement in my book. That Bobby has him riding so quietly is so satisfying, when it is obvious how happy Voodoo is to do it.
He has tracked some cows on him, and he is very interested. That is a good start, and all I want out of him at this stage.
He has mostly been ridden out in the world, as opposed to the indoor or the round pen, which is what I like to see. So far, there has not been anything that he would not do. He has not bucked, or freaked out in any way.
Good, that is how I like it.
The only weak spot he has is that he lacks some self-confidence, but once he learns something and accomplishes it, he sticks with it. That seems to be a common situation with the Slybabies---easy going, but a little timid at first. More experience seems to cure it pretty quickly, at least it has with all of the other ones so far.
Things look easy for Voodoo too--he is pretty athletic, so maneuvers look easy for him. That makes everything prettier.
He is such a cute boy, I am thrilled with his progress. I hope to take him for a spin the first nite we do not have rain after work. I better enjoy him while I can, as he is for sale. I will take $2500 for him...so spread the word to anyone looking for a horse to go on with.
When we got home, we stripped him off and got a new profile shot of him. Looking at it here, he reminds me so much of Sly.
Hopefully, I have earned some good will with Bobby, as I left him Hammer to work on next. I honestly do not know what to expect out of this one. All of his siblings have the same defensiveness about them, but this is the first one that sired by Sly that has made it to the trainer on my watch. I really think that this particular trainer is the right one to work with him though, in that he seems to really understand how to get through to each particular horse. He does not force the horse to do things his way, but instead learns what the horse needs to succeed. I am almost always wrong in my predictions about which horses will be easy to start and which ones will be difficult, so I am not going to say much more about Hammer until I see how things are going over there. I don't want to jinx it, but I am crossing my fingers that he does well, as I really like him.

Voodoo goes to school

It was bound to happen some time, and I do not know why I am surprised at this, but in the process of trimming and moving horses a few weeks ago, I took Barry's word for it when he said that Voodoo was in a certain pasture. Which then meant that we proceeded with several things from that assumption, for things such as trimming, deworming, etc.

All the horses in the back pasture are hay only horses, which normally keeps them fat as ticks, but this one-off supplier we used provided us with hay of a far lower quality than we are used to--and since it was paid for in advance, we had to feed it. It is not bad hay. It just nowhere near the quality they are used to, so the fatties dropped some weight. I discovered this, and that meant that Voodoo needed to come in to get fed up for a couple of weeks, on way better hay and some Strategy, etc.

Except, 8 days into Voodoo Rehab, I realized that that was not Voodoo. It was Boogie. Who has already been to the trainer, and although he needs to go again, I have other priorities right no. That threw off the training schedule, as I had to start all over with the Rehab on him. And I should not admit that it took me close to an hour to figure out who in the hell that was in the stall. But it did.

Anyway, the day finally came this weekend, and Voodoo was delivered to his trainer, Bobby.

This is his dismount from the trailer. His very first trailer loading and trailer ride were without incident--he hopped right up in for Barry before I was even out of the shower. I did not expect it to be that easy! When he got out, he looked around, sighed real big--then spooked at an imaginary booger. Or a peacock, hard to say at his house---I did not see a peacock though, so I am calling it an imaginary booger.

And please ignore how crappy Voodoo looks--the dried mud on his legs is what is left after an hour of grooming him on Saturday. We have been underwater here for weeks, and the weather is so crazy that none of the horses have shed off normally. Poor Voodoo has bald spots where he is shedding off all loony--he looks like he has mange.
As we pulled in, we saw Bobby loping across huge fields on this big roan--with his working dogs in tow. I tried to get shots of that, but could not catch up--it looked so happy. Just after Voodoo's spook, Bobby asked to take his lead and see how he acted being ponied from the roan horse. The poor little guy was a little anxious, but he took just fine to being snugged up close to the roan. I was proud of how quickly he settled in. Young horses are just full of surprises when they go on their first trip off the farm--you never can predict just what will happen.


Training at Bobby's is a complete 180 from a lot of trainers that I have used--that is one of the things I like about it. The horses are not stalled full-time--something I hate to see happen to a young horse like it does in a show barn. They are exposed to so many things at Bobby's--like dogs, etc, and any crazy thing he can think of to teach them. Still I was wondering if Voodoo was ready for his first step--to follow the roan horse through a walk door. Only a slight hesitation, and he walked through it like he did it every day.


Next Bobby just fiddled with him, while still on the roan. He chucked the rope at him, and aggravated Voodoo in every manner possible. Voodoo was pretty unphased by the whole thing.
And when I say he tried to aggravate him, I mean he tried to aggravate him. Look at the look on Voodoo's face--he clearly is asking me WTF is going on here?

Voodoo liked Bobby though, and I could tell he was going to be okay. Last time I left one at the trainer, I felt so guilty as he looked so scared. But this time it was okay. Strange that.


And then I see this picture, where he looks a little scaredy.

BUT, last nite, mid-Nudie tragedy, I got a phone call from Bobby. Actually he called earlier in the day but the call got dropped before we got to talk. That had me nervous all afternoon, because I was sure something had happened and Voodoo was hurt already.

Finally we got ourselves lined out and I learned that Voodoo was completely happy and having a good time. Bobby had started playing with him in the morning, flexing and bending and doing general stuff and he did good. By the afternoon, he started wondering what he could do to set him off, so he got him out again, and tried to set him off. None of the regular things worked--he tried the flag on a stick, throwing a rope at him, everything. Nothing did it. He had to spank him on the butt with the stick, while Bobby was horseback on another horse, to get him to move out at all. Then he could get him to trot and lope circles around him.


Since Voodoo was doing so well, he decided to introduce him to the saddle and see what happened. Turns out there was nothing to see. Then he stood in the stirrup and still nothing. Voodoo was so easy to get along with, he threw a leg over him.

Still nothing.

Figuring he had pushed him past any reasonable point, Bobby ended by getting Voodoo to move with him in the saddle.

His report to me was that Voodoo seemed to want to do right, and wanted to please. After the last one I sent him a while ago, who was absolutely not interested in pleasing anyone, he knew how happy I would be to hear that.

I know it means nothing long term, and probably by the end of this week, he will be up to no good, but for his first day, he was a superstar!

Real? Or Memorex?

I never know for sure what is going to come out of my camera, but this one really threw me. I could not figure out how this picture of Sly got on my camera--since it is obviously Sly when he was a baby 2 year old. I really racked my brain on how it got on my new camera. I have had 6 or 8 cameras since he was 2.


In the side shot, I see the differences. This is Voodoo, not Sly, but you would be hard pressed to tell the difference in that top photo. His mama is Foxy, so he has a brother out there, as well as the pretty Vixen from last year.

He is going to the Secret Weapon to be started later this summer.

Who's your Daddy?

Not much doubt about who is responsible for this one, is there?










I think these photos are kind of eery--that first photo of Voodoo is the spitting image of Sly when we first brought him home at 17 months.

He is going to make such a nice horse.

And he is not the only one

And here is another one that is becoming the spitting image of his daddy. This is Voodoo, a 2006 gelding. His dam is Wilson's Foxy Gal, he is her second foal and hrt first by Sly.

I am seeing more resemblance to Sly in the boys than the girls, and a lot of it is probably attitude---they all seem to have a cockiness about them that is just like him. Voodoo though has his head, I think, and that is a great thing to get from him.

Downloading these pics made me look at him a whole lot differently than I do when I see him every day- he is starting to look like a big boy! It makes me kind of sad, but proud of him as well

A peaceful photo

While all the shoeing was going on tonight, I had some free time to wander around and take photos--two of the yearlings (Voodoo and Ding) were playing hide and seek with me behind a round bale, and I got the cutest shot of them

This picture makes me happy for some reason, maybe it is the lighting, maybe it is the game we were playing, but it looks like they are so content. Look at their matching ears! I guess it is not strange, since they are so closely related, but it never fails to amaze me at some of the things they all have in common. I don't think there is one that does not have those curly ears!