Brego

When we first moved in to Borderlands in September of 2005, the neighbor had horses. I spent the first six months without horses but watched the neighbor’s horses until it was time to bring the boys home in May/June of 2006. I spent three years watching the neighbor’s horses. It was rather relaxing watching horses out the kitchen window.
In the summer of 2008 the neighbor asked if we wanted to buy his two remaining geldings for $100 apiece. We agreed that we would purchase them but that we couldn’t take them until after we made an out-of-state trip later in the fall. There was nothing set in stone and we didn’t see the neighbor for a few months. We did notice that the geldings made a break for it one day (as they are fence pushers) and were loose. The neighbor locked them in his open front and that was the last we’d seen of them for a month or more.

In October 2008, after coming back from a family party we noticed wheel tracts in the driveway since it had been raining. I had the feeling that the neighbor was tired of the horses and dropped them off. Sure enough, there were the two geldings standing in the pasture. I was concerned because the geldings were in with the old appaloosa, Queen, who used to be a herd mate but also with the blind mare. My other concern was that the fencers weren’t all that great and I KNEW they were fence pushers.

We were able to wrangle them up and put them in a smaller pen. Both were underweight but Brego was worse. It took about six months to put weight back on Brego. Unfortunately that time was during the winter months. Both geldings had once been to a trainer but had not been handled for many months. Therefore they were very wary of our actions.

Over the course of the next few months, we slowly worked with Brego gaining his confidence. By spring, Brego was up to weight and we began working on ground manners.

Brego came to Borderlands with many issues. When he first arrived, his body was eating way at his muscles and it was apparent that his back end was going to give out soon if something wasn’t done. Besides the terrible weight loss he went through, he was also a conformation wreck. He is narrow in the front with legs that paddle. We suspected that he was a slower learner than some of the other horses just in the way he acted and behaved. We decided that we would give him a full year to recover from his excessive weight loss.

In early spring of 2010 Brego was finally starting to show off his self confidence. We decided it was best to send Brego to “school” to learn manners. We warned the trainer of a few potential issues with Brego (conformation and being a slow learner). The trainer was confident that he could resolve these issues.

Unfortunately, Brego was sent to a bad trainer as a two year old. We believe that there may have been some residual affects to being trained that young by a terrible trainer. After 30 days of training, neither we nor the trainer was confident in Brego’s ability to be a ride able horse. We decided to extend his education for another 15 days so that Brego could master the basics a little better. Unfortunately Brego had too many mental blocks to break through. As of the summer of 2010, Brego is deemed non-ride able due to mental issues.

Our hope is that someday Brego can become a driving horse (as long as he’s with another horse). It will be a few years before we will put Brego back into training as there is no extra money to send Brego back to “private school”.

Because Brego is non-aggressive he latches on to other horses that are one or two steps higher than him in the pecking order. For now Brego will be our “Walmart Greeter”.