Amante is a fun little guy – or should I say not quite so little anymore. He is still young so has some bad behaviors but he is integrating into our heard of grumpy old horses well. He spent the summer at both our barn and his previous barn (Julies). But since October he has been with us full time.

This means we have four horses which we weren’t quite prepared for – but it’s going well – just ramped up the work a little.

He is having to learn proper horse etiquette and Sky, Stanley, and Rivan has done their best to teach him (bite, kick, chase teach). Sky in particular seemed to have it in for the little guy, but I’m seeing them play much more routinely. Rivian is just happy to no longer be the horse on the totem pole and the two of them often don’t get along. Stanly – well he’s like the sleepy uncle.

Bridge has been teaching Amante to stand, be patient, and listen to commands. He is making progress and if not overly distracted he behaves and listens well. If he gets excited he can be a bit of a handful to control.

Bridge has worked with him quite a bit on a variety of things. He is still young so some of them need to be done sparingly to prevent injury.

With Julie’s assistance and supervision, he has done some light jumping (that seems to be a favorite of his) as well as controlled lunging to get some running in.

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We hope that he will retain the light color – but given the golden color of his sire and dam it’s likely he will darken up some.

As of the first part of December he is already at 15 hands and still a slim 750pounds. We are expecting him to get much bigger. He is exceptionally smart and picks up new skills and overcomes most challenges quickly.

At the start of the month, Bridgett worked out a deal with Julie to move Stanley to her barn so she can work with him in the arena and we brought one of Julie’s older geldings to our place. Hefe’ is 24 and is pretty much a stall horse. He and Amante know each other well and Amante has learned how to open the stall door so the two of them can play. Much to Sky and Rivian’s disappointment.