The Parliers came to visit that day.  We saddled up all horses for them to take turns riding.  I rode “no name” a bit, and Tim rode him and cantered him for the first time.  He seemed a little uncomfortable, but Tim was concerned about the saddle fit, so didn’t want to overdo it.  He seems to canter fine without being under saddle, so he should be great once we get the saddle fitted.  He was quite willing to do whatever Tim asked.  The weather turned cold and snowy, so no training for a few days after this.

Thanksgiving Day

Both Tim and I did some groundwork with Bossman in the round pen, then saddled Strider and Bossman.  Of all the available saddles, Tahoma’s saddle seemed to fit Bossman the best (good thing, we really wanted to be able to use this saddle).  First, Tim rode Bossman while I rode Strider.  Bossman did so well under saddle, that we switched and I rode Bossman.  We wanted to see if Boss would keep up with Strider at a walk or a gait, and he did, at both attempts.  We even shot some videos of me getting him into his gait.  

It is clear to us at this point that he will be an awesome trail horse.  From now on we're thinking of him as “our horse”, pending a pre-purchase vet check.  We called Jack to let him know we just needed to schedule a vet appointment, and kept him from then on.  We began considering what we might name him.  I went crazy beginning to think of names and searching for name possibilities on the web, considering the meaning of names in addition to the sound, and whether the name would fit a horse.  I'm considering names such as Khola, Cocoa, Mocha, Dakota, Java, Chaco, Ranger, Keoki, and Shasta (thinking of coffee, chocolate or mountain themes).  I kept trying them out for sound, seeing what Tim thought, etc.  This will be quite a process!

We were excited to have nice weather to play with Bossman.  Tim had taken the entire week off for Thanksgiving, so we had all day.  Tim worked with him a bit in the round pen, then saddled him up and rode him in the round pen, Tim first, then me.  I was glad to see the beginning stages of training.  So far, I've only worked with horses Tim had already trained, except for a few times with Tahoma, so it will be nice to start "fresh".  Boss sure seemed to be an affectionate horse, right off the bat, a potential “pocket pony”.

We picked up Bossman and brought him home.  We put him in the small stock pen with water, to keep him separate from the herd. We were looking forward to working with him, but had lessons with Lori & Diane, and needed to get going.  Tim let him exercise a bit in the round pen, and took some pictures.  Here he is enjoying a jog around the pen.  I just love his long mane!

In the morning Tim picked up Apache from the people who had him, to bring him back home so we could sell him.  Later that day we visited Jack Fields and saw "Jester’s Bossman".  My first impression was that he was shy and quiet, standing apart from the other two palominos.  Boss was a beautiful bay.  Tim asked Jack about groundwork, and it was pretty clear that Jack didn’t spend much time on that, so Tim didn't bother to ask Jack to show him his skills.  Tim took Bossman on a lead and tried a couple of games.  He discovered that Boss learned quickly and was willing to learn.  We also saw him gait.  In the meantime, our visit was peppered with stories from Jack about his hound dogs, grandkids and trail rides, all with a Tennessee accent so thick you could cut it.  As we chatted and Jack watched Tim, he suggested that Tim obviously knows horses and that we are good people, and maybe we’d like to take Boss home for a week to try him out.  We took him up on the offer and arranged to pick him up the next day.

I saw an ad on dreamhorse.com for three Missouri Fox Trotters in Loveland, one of them was "Jester's Bossman" at 14.2 hands.  We called and found that the owner had just put up the ad that evening, and that we were already the second caller.  We arranged to see the horse Monday.

November 2008 

We began to look for a new horse for me (Laurie).  Our criteria was to find a short, gaited horse, so I can get on easily and keep up with Strider without constantly trotting.  We began by looking at a couple of Paso Finos, Breeze (Byers) and Ken (Golden).  They were short & petite, but we were concerned that they would have to gait constantly just to keep up with Strider’s walk.  Tim also thought that they may not be comfortable carrying him, if need be.  Tim’s practice when looking for a horse is to first ask the owner, “What kind of groundwork do you do?”  Both of these women looked puzzled and said, “Huh?  I just lead him to the trailer and put on the saddle.”  Funny.  The second explained that she puts out minerals for her horses, so they can supplement their diet as needed.  We imagined a horse deciding, “Oh, I need magnesium.  I think I’ll go get some.”  With Paso Finos still in mind, we thought we would also check out some Missouri Fox Trotters.