Hi Dale and Suzy,
Can I tell you how much I love my new horse? I am calling him Boone and he is everything I could have hoped for.

Thank you both so much for the time you spent with me. I appreciated Dale taking the time to really show me the training he had done with both of the horses I looked at. It was a great feeling coming back to your ranch to look at another horse and know that I would be dealt with honestly. I knew that I could trust Dale to tell me if he didn't think the horse and I were a match. I also appreciate the great photos...thank you Suzy!

Boone trailered home beautifully on Monday and stood quietly in the trailer during a pit stop in Ellensburg. He was calm when I unloaded him in a strange new place and was calm in his new paddock. The next morning I took him to a covered arena at the farm where we ride and he did great being in a new covered arena and with several other horses. I played with him on the ground a day or two later and he was fun and easy to work with. He got a little sassy a couple of times, but I think that was because I made my requests more firmly than is necessary with him. He is a bit more sensitive than some of the other horses I have had, so it will be good for me to refine my own sensitivity for him.

On Friday I took him to another new arena, this time a large outdoor one. I went with a friend and we stopped to pick her up. Boone was lovely in the trailer with a new horse. We rode in the arena and then out onto the trails. He would lead or follow. The most trouble he gave me was when we were trying to get to the river and we came to a blind curve. He was in the lead and did not want to go forward into the curve between tall blackberry bushes where he couldn't see. He backed up quickly and turned around twice, but I stuck with him and on the third try he went. At that point my friend noticed he had a big hunk of dried blackberry branch stuck in his tail and was dragging it behind him. It didn't seem to bother him, so I deliberately left it there for part of the ride so he would get accustomed to the feeling. There are lots of blackberries to ride through around here, so it happens all the time. I figured he might as well get used to it. I know horses that go ballistic when that happens. We rode up in the hills too and he was good there as well. He did not try to charge up or down hill, which I know is a result of Dale's good training. I didn't allow him to go faster than a walk, even though a couple of times I know he would have trotted or loped up.

On Sunday I took him for another outing. My boys were on their bikes and my husband rode Sugar. I had Jack ride his bike in circles (farther at first and then closer) around Boone and I on the ground to see how he would react. He could have cared less, which was what I was expecting since he was fine riding alongside the 4-wheeler at your place. I also sacked him out with a noisy plastic grocery bag before we left. We have to be considerate with manure since we have to ride on the road and through some neighborhoods, which means I occasionally have to hang a plastic bag on my saddle. He was fine with that too, except right on his ears. I will work with him on that. We have to ride along roads to get to the trails and some drivers are pretty inconsiderate and go really fast. He was ok with all of that and would follow the bikes or have them behind him (at a safe distance). At one point I was riding along the sidewalk and Jack was riding his bike fast and then slamming on the brakes to try to make skid marks in the street. The squeal of the brakes and the noise the tires make on the road when skidding didn't bother Boone either, even when Jack did it right next to us.

I took him to the covered arena again yesterday and also played with him on line out in a field that has logs to jump and platforms to stand on. He would put his two front feet up on a platform and would jump over some pretty big logs. I also spent time working with him yesterday to back out of the trailer. He has not been comfortable doing that as mine is a step-up and he has been worried about stepping off backwards. Though I had intended to ride in the arena yesterday, I ended up spending 50 minutes getting him to back out of the trailer. I did not lose my patience and just kept rewarding him with a release for any steps or movement backwards. When he finally went out all the way, I immediately took him to eat grass. When it was time to go home, we tried it again. At first it was still really difficult, but once he went out, it was back to the grass. He caught on to that program quickly, so I had him go in and out several more times, rewarding him with grass each time he came out, before we left. Then when we got home he backed out like he had been doing it forever. That has been our biggest challenge thus far, and we worked through it just fine, so I think we will be able to handle any others we come across as well. It says a lot about my comfort level with this horse and his training that I was confident working by myself with him in a trailer.

Boone and Sugar are getting along just fine. I took several days to gradually introduce them. First they had separate paddocks with a small field in between so they could see and hear each other but not touch over the fence. After a couple of days of that, I went to having them across the fence from one another for a couple of days. When I finally put them in together, I put them in the field. They were so busy with the grass that they didn't pay each other too much attention. Sugar is definitely the dominant one, as I knew she would be, and she does the screaming mare thing occasionally, but she is much nicer to him than she has been to other horses I have had her with, so I think she likes him. He is so handsome, I can't blame her. Sugar has been a great horse. Jack will start back to 4H drill team practice with her shortly.

So, I am now the happy owner of two lovely, trustworthy, Dale Cossman trained horses and am looking forward to many years and many miles with Boone. I looked down at his beautiful mane the other day and had the thought that I will hopefully be looking down at that same mane for the next 20-plus years.

Thank you both again for everything,
Jeanine