Sevilla Sangria- Update 2

From Lauren Floyd, WVS club member

Over the last month I’ve had to step back and reevaluate my short-term expectations for Ria (JC name- Sevilla Sangria). Unfortunately, her weight and overall body condition hasn’t improved, so after about two weeks of training with Kim Clark, we both made the decision to ship her back home to Virginia to focus on improving her health.

A Training Update

Kim’s report on Ria was that she was very sweet and intelligent but has next to no attention span (which was something I had definitely noticed in my lunge work with her). They made great strides with regards to Ria’s lunging and increasing her attention span, but there wasn’t much chance to do more serious work with her.

Kim’s feedback to me was that she believes I can restart Ria myself, with the help of our farm owner and manager, so she won’t have to ship back and forth between farms again. I’m simultaneously nervous and a little intimidated, but also excited at the prospect of training her myself.

The New Plan at Home

My plan is to keep things very slow with her and only do groundwork until her weight and condition are better. We’re going to keep working on lunging for now, with some desensitization work interspersed. I also plan to walk her out on some of our trails on foot to get her used to the area and see how she handles the wildlife and other distractions. Eventually I’m going to try ground driving her so that by the time she’s rideable, we should have an excellent foundation. 

Since returning to Virginia, I met with the barn owner and veterinarian to discuss how best to help Ria. We have opted to add an additional lunch-time meal for her, so she is now getting 9 pounds of Purina Ultium grain a day. She is also on unlimited hay, 2 pounds of alfalfa pellets, and now Cool Calories. She also recently started Gastroguard to treat any stomach ulcers and will be getting bloodwork and deworming done later this week. I’m hopeful that this will all make a difference for her and am so grateful that I have such a wonderful team at the farm to help.

To read the previous update on Ria (AKA Sevilla Sangria) click here. To learn more about Lauren, click here.