[sprig]

Username: ImogenEquine
Name: Wingardium Leviosa / Levi
Gender: Male
Eye Color: Green
Dam:
Sire:

1. First encounter - Complete!
2. Adjusting to the new home - Complete!
3. Introduction of the halter - Complete!
4. Meeting a friend - Complete!
5. Gaining your horse's trust - Complete!
6. First time with saddle - Complete!
7. Ground work - Complete!
8. First ride - Complete!
9. Free spot - Complete!

Congrats on taming your tolter!
This tolter now fully belongs to you, and anytime past September 13th it may be bred.

[ImogenEquine]

Show Name: Wingardium Leviosa
Barn Name: Levi
Gender: Stallion

[ImogenEquine]

One morning I was rereading my copy of the well known novel, "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", and I heard a weird sound from behind my house. When I walked outside of my house, I headed towards the barn behind it, and I saw a slight shine of silver metal. As I approached it, I saw that a round pen had been set up with a stallion inside. Confused, I walked up to the side of the pen and looked at the horse. He looked back at me with eyes that showed that he was just as confused and scared as I was. He seemed oddly shy and calm for a stallion, so I reached out with my right hand in his direction. Instantly, his head jolted back and his body became tense. Not wanting to bother him too much, but still being curious, I walked to the other side of the pen, his fearful eyes following my every move. I noticed a small slip of paper taped to one of the metal bars. I unfolded it and began to read:

"Hello Imogen.
We took this stallion a few days ago to use as a rodeo horse but he was too scared of everything and wasn't working well for us. He wouldn't buck or be aggressive so he won't be good for bronc riding. Since we don't have a use for him, we found your barn and dropped him off here. Do what you want with him. He's useless and a nervous wreck.
By the way, he's never had a rider on him. Good luck with that.
-Anonymous"

I looked back up at the horse, wondering what he had really been through. He was quite beautiful; a champagne roan tovero. I silently hoped to myself that I could really bring him out of his shell. I took a few steps towards him in attempt to get a better look at his condition, but this sent him off in a quick trot. His trot was actually very light and airy-looking, so I decided to name him something similar to that. 'Hmm... what could I name him', I thought to myself. I decided to also make it relevant to Harry Potter as it's my favourite book series. After brainstorming for a minute while he calmed himself down, I settled on the show name "Wingardium Leviosa", as it's the spell to make objects float. I wondered about possible barn names as well before choosing "Levi". I think it suited him and I secretly hopes that he would live up to his name and become an amazing, gravity-defying jumper.

[ImogenEquine]

After letting Levi calm down a bit in the round pen, I decided that it was probably a good idea to get him into one of the paddocks by himself so that he can be more comfortable. I didn't want to put him into a stall just yet, as horses are animals of prey, and being in a small place where they can't run can sometimes be scary for them. With that in mind, I walked off to grab a rope halter, in hopes that it wouldn't be to scary for him.

I picked up a white rope halter and brought it with me to the round pen. After bribing him with a few slices of apple, he stood still long enough for me to put the halter on. It was pretty strange for a wild horse to be so calm, but of course, it wasn't a bad thing, as it made him easy to handle. I walked parallel to him, but quite far away so that I wouldn't scare him, and headed towards the closest empty paddock with an open gate and he went in without too much of a fight. Once I went to take his halter off, his fear set in again, and he bolted away as soon as I slid it off. It really didn't look like this was going to get any easier, but I was willing to give him a chance.

I refilled the water trough in his field and watched as he came over to investigate it almost right away. He stuck his nose in the bucket before jolting backwards quickly, snorting, and galloping off. He soon returned, looking more suspicious of the water, but after watching it for a few minutes, he slowly approached it and drank a bit.

As I watched him graze off and on throughout the next day, I decided to start feeding him some high-fat grain, as I noticed that his ribs stuck out a bit. When I began to tie the bucket of grain to the fence, he stared at me, curious as to what I was doing.

As soon I had finished putting the bucket up, I left the side of the fence so that he wouldn't be too scared. Like I assumed he would, he did the same thing that he did with the water, getting scared at first, but then realizing that it was safe.

After a few days of living with me, he began to stop running from me, and started to just watch me cautiously instead. I hoped that he was learning that I was not a threat and that I was only there to help him. He started to become familiar with the sights and smells of his new home as well, such as the other horses and the smell of the grain, which would have him running to the fence every day.

[ImogenEquine]

Levi's halter is forest green with a white stripe on the cheekpiece. It also features silver hardware and a white star on the side of the nosepiece.

[ImogenEquine]

[ImogenEquine]

After he'd been living with me for a few months, Levi became a very easy to approach horse. I think that after watching me bring horses out and in from the paddocks, petting them, and occasionally giving them a treat or two, Levi realized that I meant absolutely no harm to him. He started to step up to the fence when I was standing nearby, and would let me touch his nose, even though he would seen quite uncertain of the gesture sometimes. Since this was a lot of progress from when he first cane and wouldn't let me near him, I tried to keep him doing it. I soon made it a routine to walk over and pet him. The routine was that I would turn out the first horses of the morning and he would walk to the side of his fence. After the horses were safely put in the field, I would walk over to him and stroke his nose for a minute or so and then leave to finish other barn work. We repeated this action day after day until one day, where he let me move my hand up to his forehead. I ran my hand all the way down his head and he didn't even flinch. I kept petting him for around five minutes that day and then decided that I should leave to make sure that it ended on a high note where both of us were happy instead of doing it until he decided to be scared of human contact again. For the following week after this day, he allowed me to pet his whole head without any sort of fuss, so I once again decided that it was a good time to move on with him accepting my contact. So far, he seemed to be enjoying my interaction, possibly because he was in a field by himself all the time, but anyways, his acceptance really made me happy.

Since he hadn't been groomed at all since he arrived at my farm, I wanted to make that my next goal. At the rate that we were going, he'd hopefully be okay with me touching him within a few days or a week. Cleaning him was becoming a more and more important thing to do as he had started to roll in the dirt quite often and his light coloured coat was becoming a little to brown for my liking. After turning the morning horses out into the fields around his, I walked up to the fence, following our routine, but this time, instead of turning away from him and leaving after a few minutes, I turned to the side and walked to the gate. When I did this, Levi started at me intently, appearing somewhat confused about what I was doing. His body tensed up as I opened the field's gate with the sound of the lock popping, just as it had when I tried to approach him on the very first day I saw him at my farm, and my stomach twisted slightly, scared to reverse any of the progress that we had been building up so very quickly, especially for such a jumpy horse. I went against my gut feeling, acting quite quickly in order to prevent myself from overthinking my actions, and stepped I to the paddock, closing the metal gate behind me. At this moment, Levi lost his fear and bravely took two steps towards me, his ears pricked forwards interested in what I was doing. My tight jaw loosened and the corners of my mouth lifted into a smile as Levi took a few more steps towards me until the tip of his muzzle was only an arm's length away. I moved myself one more slow step towards him and thankfully, Levi didn't flinch again. I touched the side of his head for a brief second before walking slightly past his eye and slowly reaching out once again, this time my fingertips making contact with his muscular neck. I rubbed it for a minute with my hand before taking exaggeratedly slow steps, letting my hand run across his body, all the way from his withers to his croup. This soft touch caused Levi to actually relax slightly, oddly enough. Perhaps he had never known love before he had met me and I guess he really liked the all new concept of being loved if so. I ended up spending an hour in there with him, taking time to pick twigs out of his mane and tail, and he even let me use a curry comb to loosen some of the dirt, which I swept away with the side of my hand.

[ImogenEquine]

Levi had been letting me touch his whole body for a few weeks now and eventually let me fully groom hi with all the different brushes, even a hoof pick. At first he flinched slightly, but after awhile, he relaxed at my touch. It seemed to me that he was more than ready to take a step forward in his training. I was almost sure he was ready to have a saddle placed on his back for the first time.

I began the day with turning out the morning horses as I always have done. Afterwards, instead of going over to pet Levi, I walked into the barn. When I turned and walked the other direction than usual, I noticed that Levi stared at me, trying to figure out where I was going. I walked into the barn without looking back again and opened the tack room door, grabbing a saddle and picking up a saddle rack to put it on. Then, I exited the tack room and grabbed a lead rope before leaving the barn. As I walked back in the direction of the fence of the paddock that Levi was in, Levi stood mesmerized, right by the gate, intrigued by all of the things that I was holding and kind of struggling to carry, to be completely honest. I unlocked the gate awkwardly and then set up the saddle rack in the grass. I noticed as Levi stool a few steps towards the saddle rack, but I put my arm out to block him, indicating that I was not ready for him to come check the whole thing out yet. I placed the saddle on top of the rack, trying to make the least amount of sound possible so that Levi wouldn't spook at it, and then I stepped back, letting the horse get a good look at it. I turned around, letting him investigate the new thing a little bit, and I swiftly tied a quick release knot with the lead rope around the top wooden plank of the strong fence. I made sure that the length was right so that I could have Levi standing by the fence standing still, which would enable me to place my saddle on top of his back with what I was hoping to be minimal fuss or panicking. I took Levi and clipped the clasp on the lead rope to the bottom metal ring on his halter and let him adjust himself until he was relaxed again. He was still quite suspicious of the whole set up, but I wouldn't blame him, as he didn't know what any of it was. I picked up the saddle and walked over to Levi's side slowly and raised the saddle so that it was just above his back. Instead of looking fearful, he just looked annoyed which made me laugh slightly. I lowered the saddle slowly and once it was fully resting on his back, I took a step backwards, just incase he decided to kick out or anything. What surprised me most is that he just stood there. He didn't want to move much, but he didn't look extremely mad or scared like I had expected. He stood and waited patiently for me to take it off, which I did soon after, and then he just looked at me, as if wondering what I was trying to accomplish by putting a chair on him.

[ImogenEquine]

(I'm going to include lunging in here as ground work if that's alright!)

I clipped my lead rope to the bottom ring of Levi's halter and stepped back, staring at him, looking him over. He stared back, confused why the lead rope was not tied to the fence in a quick release knot like it usually was when I put his saddle on him. That day I had planned to teach him to follow me when he was lead. I tried to walk off, hopping that he would follow me around in his paddock, but he just put his head down and grabbed a huge mouthful of grass. This behaviour was not something I wanted him to learn to do, as he should be paying attention to his handler, not the grass, so I took him out of his paddock, on to the gravel path that travelled all around my barn and down to the road. At this point, he followed me, but he still kept trying to go back to his paddock where the grass was. In response to this, I grabbed a small amount of apple flavoured horse treats and started to walk away from him, still holding the lead rope. Seeing the food, Levi was more than happy to follow me to get it, but he began to get in my personal space just a little bit too much. Soon enough though, he learned that he had to follow me while still giving me some space in order to be rewarded with a treat. For the next little while, I added leading him around to our daily routine so that he would act politely around others, including myself.

I had put a saddle on Levi a couple of times after the first time, and since then, he had become very used to it and really did not mind it at all. Oddly enough, he didn't ever really mind it too much, so I thought he was ready for the next stage of ground work, hoping that he would soon be ready for me to try to get on his back for the very first time. 'Today is the day that Levi learns some ground manners', I thought to myself as I took a step inside of my barn to grab a lunge line and a lunge whip just in to use to make a sound if he was way too lazy. I was really just hoping that he wasn't too crazy as I walked towards his paddock. As I approached the gate, he stood there waiting for me, stretching out his neck to sniff what I held in my hand that was holding the lunge line and whip. I stepped inside and clipped the shiny metal clip to the bottom ring of his halter and headed off towards the arena with Levi trailing behind me, now that he knew how leading worked. Once we stepped in the arena, he took his time to look at everything, taking in his new surroundings. He even pressed his muzzle into the arena dirt and blew out, sending the soft brown dust flying into the air. I clipped the lead rope and redid it so that it was pulled over the top of his halter as you should when you lunge. He instantly understood that I wanted him to go in a circle around me, but kept trying to drift back in towards me, which forced me to flick my whip on the floor beside him, which sent him back out on a larger circle, just like how I initially wanted him to. When I asked him to quicken his pace slightly, he took off at a fast trot, almost breaking into a canter, and I quickly had to ask him to slow down. When I asked him to slow down, he came to a halt right away, so I had to ask him to keep going, and that was when he finally started walking at a nice pace that was not to slow nor too fast. We did the same thing in the other direction and then I decided to end our little training session right there, on a high note, and I lead him back to his paddock, where he promptly began to eat again.

[ImogenEquine]

I had finally decided that I was going to do it. I built up all the courage I could and walked towards Levi's paddock, his saddle and bridle in my hands. My stomach felts like it was going to explode with my anxiety, but I knew this day had to come sooner or later. Maybe later might've been safer, but I had made my decision already and I planned to stick to it and just hope to no end that it didn't end up with me having a mouthful of dirt or Levi having any sort of injury. I shook my head in an attempt to get out the negative thoughts and continued to walk, forcing myself to at least act confident, even though I wasn't exactly feeling it too much. Despite all these emotions building up inside me, I still smiled when I noticed Levi waiting for me obediently at his gate. I entered his paddock and tied a quick release knot, clipping the lead rope's clasp to his halter as I always did. Levi knew that I was going to put the saddle on him, but he'd never even seen his own bridle before. I had chosen a bit-less bridle so that he would be more comfortable with the foreign object on his head. I put the saddle and the soft saddle pad on his back with ease and did up his girth without him minding too much at all. I picked up his bridle that had been hung over one of the fence's posts and slid it over my arm. I stood at the side of his head where he could easily see my every move and began to rub my hand all over his head like I used to. Since he was so calm with this, I slid the bridle over his head and behind his ears. I was amazed at the fact that he trusted me so much that he didn't even flinch. I lead him out of the paddock by the bridle's reins and walked him to the arena. I placed the mounting block at his side and adjusted the stirrups on either side, pausing once to check that my girth was tight enough. The last thing I wanted was for him to be traumatized by his saddle slipping around his barrel. I climbed the two steps of the mounting block and stood still for about ten seconds, stopping to make sure that he would not try to walk off and making sure that he would remain still. He stood in place as I put one foot in the first stirrup, pushing half of my weight down into it. He stood frozen in place as I tried this again and then I finally raised myself into the saddle. I made sure to land slowly on his back, in my best attempt to not frighten him at all. He flinched, but he stayed frozen on the spot. I applied pressure with my legs, and he did not move an inch. I gave him a harder squeeze and he still stood as still as a statue. I was feeling a bit desperate for him to move, so I gave him a small kick. I had totally forgotten that he used to be owned by rodeo workers who probably tried to kick him aggressively with spurs, so this completely set him off. Instantly, he took of galloping, throwing the odd awkward hop or buck. I somehow managed to stay on, but I was still pretty shaken when I was finally able to bring him back to a walk. At the walk, she settled back down more, but I could sense that he still had his guard up completely. I asked him to walk forward with a slight squeeze, and he obeyed my command with no fuss at all, almost as if he hadn't completely freaked out the minute before. After walking around for fifteen minutes, I got off of him and put him back in his paddock where he rolled right away, as soon as I untacked him and groomed him quickly.