Team Onyx August 5, 2025 - Update!

Week 11 with #dakotashowdownteamonyx

A LOT more new things this week!

- Surcingle

- Lunging on the line

- Ball

- Bathtime

- Ponying

- “Kick It” trick

- “Stretch and Hold It” trick

 

Let’s start with the surcingle, simply because it’s the introduction that went the worst. I definitely rushed him into it; I thought he would do well since he was taking everything else with stride. I should have listened to him and my gut, but I didn’t and still pushed through. He payed the price for me rushing him. When I asked him to trot, he bucked. And hard. For a full lap of the roundpen, until I got in front of him and told him to stop. He stopped and faced me with the most WTF face I’ve ever seen. We did a long and slow session after that.

 

And flash forward to Sunday, he did a lot better. He’s still tense, which I expected. But once I asked him to trot, he gave a tiny buck and then stopped and faced me. And when asked again, he gave me half a circle in a trot, so I told him to stop and praised him heavily. He didn’t buck after that.

 

I am kicking myself for the terrible introduction to the surcingle. But he’s been extremely forgiving, and I’m lucky.

Now let’s move onto the good, which is everything else that happened this week.

 

- Lunging on the line.

It went well! I’ve only round-penned him three times total before I asked him to do this. He’s been extremely smart and responsive to my cues. And with the roundpen occupied, we were kind of forced to lunge on a line. Of course we had the initial “umm what do you want from me” look. But once I started focusing on being behind his shoulder, pointing, and voicing what I wanted, it clicked and he walked on. He’s still very obviously new to it, but I’m still proud of his willingness to understand. I also put a saddlepad on his back and asked him to walk and trot with it on, and he did amazingly! Even when it fell off!

 

- Ball

The noise and movement of the ball is definitely strange to a horse. He was startled a lot by it at first. But after I took his lead rope off and just let him exist in the same area as the ball and not forcing him to interact, he felt a lot more comfortable. The only thing that stills worries him about it, is when I bounce it over him. But everything else; Touching his legs? Kicking it through his legs? Bouncing it off him? He doesn’t seem to mind lol.

 

- Bathtime

Now this is the one thing I expected him to do well at. And I was right. He’s very goofy, he liked drinking the water from the hose. So we took frequent drink breaks in between rinsing him off, which I think helped him tolerate it more. I didn’t go all in with soap or anything, just a quick rinse.

 

- Ponying

So the horse I was originally going to use to pony Onyx said “No thanks”. But Hailey was riding a different horse who was ok with being the babysitter. So she got to be the sacrifice for ponying Onyx He was a very good boy, just has very short legs compared to a thoroughbred.

 

- “Kick It” Trick

This trick goes along with the ball. Onyx is very treat motivated and is willing to learn almost anything to get one. He kicked the ball once when I was introducing it, and I was like “hey, that’s a cool trick idea”, so we spent a good hour working on “kick it”. He picked it up so quickly, I was beyond impressed. And he was very engaged with me the whole time.

 

- “Stretch and Hold It” trick

We just started this one today (Monday). I want him to be more prepared for farrier and have a positive response to it. Hence us working on getting him to hold his foot on the stand. The video isn’t the best, but you get the idea of what I’m asking.

I had a different volunteer pick up his feet and pick them out. At first he was nervous, but he still picked up his feet nicely. After getting rewarded for both his fronts, he was a lot more confident about his backs.

 

All in all, I’m very pleased with how he did with everything new this weekend.

 

I also decided to measure his height. He’s just a hair under 14hh, but is butt-high at the moment, so I’m hoping he at least gets to 14hh. The dream is that he gets at least 14.2hh lol.

 

He also got to be a model for my custom made loping hackamores (which are for sale btw).