Fun in the Big Pen

Siesta got her first taste of free play time yesterday.  Her gentling pen is in a corner of a mostly-covered arena, and that's where she's spent her time for the last month.  She's been led from her pen to the round pen, which is under cover in the middle of the arena, but that's as far as she's gone.  She's doing so well with her training that I felt like it was time to let her a loose for a while.  I put her web halter on and opened the gate, and Siesta seemed to know what I was up to before I did it.  She made her cute little mustang-snorty sound then calmly stepped out.  There were three piles of River's poop right there, so sniffing them gave her something interesting to do.  For seven minutes she walked around with her nose on the ground sniffing every inch of everything.  She drank from puddles.  She tasted the footing (and spit it out).  She took in the view.  And then she decided to crank it up a few notches and cut loose with some really Western rodeo moves.  Her canter and gallop are awesome!  She had fun running into a corner then spinning out of it and charging in the other direction.  Her trot is fun to watch too; there is lots of knee and hock action.  After two whole minutes of hard play she decided to go back to walking, sniffing, and puddle drinking.

I was very impressed.  Had any of our other horses been cooped up for five weeks, they would have blown off way more steam.  I cleaned Siesta's pen and a couple of other stalls while Siesta cooled herself down.  When I came in with an armload of straw for her bed, she followed me in and munched on it a bit.  Next thing I knew she was standing in her favorite corner with her head down and her eyes closed.  Having fun is so much work!