# New Adventures with Bruno & Kota



## Bruno N Kota (Dec 28, 2016)

We just got our horses, Bruno & Kota on Dec. 11th this year. We'd decided to finally get horses like we've been talking about doing for over 30 yrs. So I started looking, and after a couple of close calls with scammers, my sister helped me find some folks that sell horses. Lots of horses! Well, they have wonderful testimonials w/pics from new owners so we made the 3 hr drive. I tried 2 horses that were in our price range and our level (or close HA!). (There were horses in my life since I was born till my late teens. Rusty had one when he was a kid, too. Nothing fancy, but had seen & done everything.. from ranch work to whatever a kid can put a horse through and still smile.) 
In the mid 90's I bought a little (rescue quality) Quarter/Arab mix stallion that had the kindest sweetest attitude. He was nearly 3, and green as grass.. but willing to try anything, saddled or not, if you just talked real easy to him. He was about 250 - 300 lbs underweight, but eagerly put on weight and was becoming a wonderful horse. It didn't take long and I realized how bad/wet his environment was, and way too often, and his feet were starting to suffer, he even started to colic, so for his health.. I adored that horse, but I sold him to a great home. I was bawling my eyes out & my husband told me that one day we'd have horses, again. 
Fast forward to Dec. 2016
*Right or wrong, sometimes we fly 'by the seat of our pants'. This includes getting the horses. 
We (thought we) had a pasture all lined up, and were ready to get horses!
Now where we got them there's a few hundred acres, about 300 horses and several round pens to gather them in. It was beautiful when they called, and all those horses came thundering in! We won't be showing them or anything, we just want reliable horses to go for nice rides on. (I have a REALLY bad neck - I know.. a horse?!? YES!!! LOL) 
I rode a paint(Kota) first, and he was nice but I didn't feel like 'I'd just climbed on 'my horse' with him. I then tried this black/brown horse (Bruno), and when I got on him I felt it! I'd just climbed on MY horse. Oh boy! Ends up my husband liked the paint, even though he didn't ride him then. Both are geldings. It would be difficult for us to be able to go back up there and ride them a few times, so we said yes.
They told us that Bruno is about 12 and Kota is 10. They'd had Kota for a couple of years. They'd gotten Bruno in June/July and he'd already been sold & brought back twice. One person wanted him for a lesson horse, but he's got way too much energy in him for what they needed, he's wound a little tight. The next person wanted to work cattle on him, but said he didn't like it/not a good 'cow horse' and brought him back. So I'm his 3rd owner in 5 months. 
When we decided to get 2 horses, instead of 1, we lost our pasture. OH NO!!! Our horses are going to be delivered in 2 weeks. We recently got a small 1 acre piece of land (with an old half falling down house) that's been overgrown since the mid 90's. It's 12 miles from where we live, but just a few hundred feet from one of my sisters' place. When we got it last Spring, we didn't know we were getting horses.
My husband works 6 days a week and leaves before the sun's up & gets home after it's gone down, so he didn't have much time to work on it. One of my nephews came and cleared a lot in about a 40 x 70 area, and we got it fenced. No grass at all. 
They had been living on pasture & hay cubes. I don't know what the 2 earlier owners had fed Bruno. But they weren't used to real horse feed, so I was absolutely terrified of colic. They have to eat... all day.. and everything I have to offer is new to them/their systems. The first 5 days, I went They're healthy, but out of condition. Now they get good food, lots of hay and wet alfalfa/bermuda pellets (broken down to little blocks/pads) that I throw out like Easter eggs to hunt & 'graze' for after breakfast & dinner. I'm already seeing little changes. Filling in a little on their backs in front of their rears. Kota's ribs aren't as prominent now. It was about a week after we got them, we saddled them up (no ground work whatsoever.. but more on that later) as if we'd been riding them forever. I'd ridden both of them once, 2 weeks earlier. They did pretty good, too. Especially considering they went from a bit to a hackamore that didn't fit right and kept slipping around their heads. I fixed it a little with some soft, thin rope. They still seemed to enjoy getting out (except the scary concrete bench). 
Christmas weekend, me & Rusty cleared/fenced enough of the rest of the pen in back that we felt it was ready enough to let the horses have the extra space (about 160/170 x 50ish). A couple of times a week, I take them down to my sisters place and put them in the corral (round pen panels) attached to the fence her 2 Fjord mares are in. They really love that! Cute girls to flirt with and grass to graze in. Christmas day(2 weeks after we got them) it was around 77 degrees and cloudy, so we decided to go for a ride. I know they have a lot of pent up energy spending most of the week milling about their pen (need to lunge). They started out fine, but after a little while started acting up/wanted to go home. We walk and trot a little, so it's not a grueling ride. Kota started giving Rusty a hard time. I know they're feeling better since they're getting good nutrition and they need to burn more energy than they currently get to. (this is where I need to start lunging them/learn to start lunging them. It's been a long time). They're good horses, Bruno seems to have been better trained than Kota. Kota plow reins & Bruno is a pretty good rein-er and is good with a light hand. They don't seem to like their new fleece lined hackamores, so I'm going to go back to a bit. The one with levers, but the split bit, like they had on when we first rode them. (suggestions/advice is more than welcome!) and see if that fixes some issues.
Anyway, on the way back, Kota was throwing his head way up high and keep it there, so R. didn't have much control. Near the end of the trail, I asked Bruno to turn from Kota and go back up the trail. He took 2 steps and planted his feet. When I started urging him to go on, he started kind of dancing, like he couldn't decide if he should rear or buck. I turned him in a tight circle and asked him to go again. Well, he did.. only in reverse!! LOL He backed into some thick youpon/brush and into a small tree, which made him lunge forward and stop. I asked him if he felt better, then asked him again to go the way I wanted and he went. We went about 75' and stopped and I petted him and talked to him about the whole thing, then took him home. 
The trail we have isn't very long and then it ends up in a place that's too muddy (unless extended dry spell) and going up and down that trail several times, I think, gets on their nerves a little. We'd like to spread out a little farther too. To do that, we have to go about 1/4 - 1/3 of a mile along a main highway, but it does have a very wide (50'ish) grassy right-of-way, then cross it and we could get to some less traveled places to go on a little longer rides. This weekend we were going to start walking them down the road to the point they could see the highway traffic. If they're ok with it, get a little closer. Of course it's supposed to rain all weekend. Might get a little break Sunday, though. 
Lunging... most of the time, there is no one around so I'll be trying this alone. I admit I think it's risky, and I'm a little nervous about lunging them for the first time. IF something bad happened, it'd be nice for someone to be there that could intervene. But, I guess I gotta do what I gotta do. They're not mean horses, but they've shown they'll slip right into 'test the human mode' when it comes to doing something that isn't their idea or desire. They may do great, but ya know.. lol I'll have to walk them down to my sisters house to lunge them. I don't know if I only bring 1, the one that's left will probably have a conniption! If I bring both, 1 will have to be tied while 1 lunges. I've seen them stand tied for 20+ minutes where we bought them, but it may be different here. 
I'm very open to advice/suggestions. I know they don't have ideal conditions, but I'm doing what I can. Please, though, don't tell me I should get rid of my horses and get over it, as I've been told.
Well, that's about all I have time to write for now.


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