r/blmmustang

This is my Devils Garden Mustang right before being sent to the colt starter. Sadly they don’t get to hang in the pasture anymore because someone is a fattie

I got lucky and fulfilled a lifelong dream - these two yearling fillies came home with me yesterday. They were born at the Devil's Garden corrals and spent the last 8 months with a local mustang trainer who needed to move them on because she's moving. So they have all the basics of being good citizens and are well socialized and I'm not starting from ground zero.

My question is this - given that I have several years before they're ready to be ridden, what are some fun things to do with babies? I'm 50 and realistically they'll be my last horses. On the "useful life skills" side of things we'll be doing lots of hiking in the chaparral together; I'll be teaching them about hobbles, high lines, and picketing; my whatever weird lightweight things I come across on their backs so that a human seems downright normal; introducing the idea of a bit and also a bosal; ground driving, etc.

But since I'm a clicker trainer I was also thinking that it might be fun to teach them things that are more like canine freestyle than equine groundwork freestyle? Maybe a bunch of liberty work generally? One of them in particular has a busy little brain that reminds me of my border collie, so if there's a book out there of "101 tricks to teach your baby horse before she can have a real job" please point me at it