Tilly aka Tillykins aka Tillymonster aka TilTil aka Genius Baby

Wow back on the blogging train for a few weeks and I've already fallen behind, oops. 

I feel like I should probably tell the story of Tilly, and get us up to speed on what she's been doing since she came home at the end of March. 

I wasn't looking for a new horse. No, really - I had a trip planned to Italy in May (which was AMAZING) and I figured I'd get back from the trip, spend the summer working my side hustles and see where I landed come end of summer/fall. The horse prices in the current market are staggering and there was just no way I was going to be able to reasonably afford a 4-6 year old broke-ish, sane draftx that didn't look like its mother is a camel and its sire is a wildebeest. 

Diamond in the rough or a baby, got it. 

I still surfed through all kinds of facebook ads trying to see what was out there and to start setting my expectations based on where I thought my budget would be. I sent some inquiries, rescinded my interest when prices were in the $20-30k range, and was then just sad and missing Goose. Then Abby (friend and former barn manager) sent me this: 

Okay but LOOK AT HER. Don't get too excited about the tail though because it's baby bleach and is growing out, much to my dismay.

Sometimes you just know. I saw her ad and simply had to message the owner. I played that game where I told myself "okay if she's under $X, I'll go see her because I could maybe swing it but if not it's not meant to be."

Well, she was more than $X but she was also very reasonably priced for her quality. I told the owner I'd let her know if my situation changed but that I didn't want to insult her with where I was currently comfortable. 

That night, I had a dream about Goose and a little bay filly in a field together. So the next morning I did what any rational person would do, and I called back Tilly's then-owner and set up time to go see her that coming weekend. She pre-purchased a few days later, and came home exactly two weeks after I first saw her ad. I'm very lucky that I could swing it, and made the epitome of a #YOLO decision. It's just money after all, and I'm only going to be my early 30's and want to do the baby thing for a short window in time (oh the lies I tell myself). Why not go for it?

Tilly was down in GA, owned by a lovely woman and her daughter who had a few horses at home, including their own homebred three year old. They bought Tilly from her breeder right before her first birthday to grow up with their other baby and train them together, but life happens and they had to refocus. They did SUCH a nice job with Tilly - she picks up all four feet, loads like a dream, isn't particularly spooky but when she is nervous about something, her inclination is to go up to it and touch it. She is a GEM, and already had a really great groundwork foundation when I met her. 

The day I went to meet her, we threw anything we could find including the step stool around and she didn't care, just went up and sniffed it. 

The farm where I first visited her in GA was a facility Tilly had never been to before, which I loved. To me, it's not about what a baby already knows, it's about how they handle things they DON'T know. Are they more of a flight risk, or curious? How do they handle stress? You can learn a lot about young horses by putting them in new situations and just seeing how they react. I'm not saying throw them in the middle of something terrifying and new, but a new farm was the best of all worlds for me to meet her. 

After she DRAGGED me up to the brush so she could sniff it, and just before she tried to eat it.

She had a bit of stranger danger and gave me the side eye, but warmed up quickly. It was clear she had 'her people' and she'd require many snuggles and cookies for me to become one of them. She was brave, curious, touched all the things and didn't care about much. She was PERFECT. I watched her load up on the trailer to go back to her farm, and she was an angel. I was entirely smitten with her and I know bringing her home was the right choice. 

Tilly got off the trailer at Robindale like she owned the place. Our BM could not believe how easygoing she was, just hopped off, saw grass, walked calmly out to her new field to meet Zena, and was like okay cool I live here now. Baby. Genius. 

Since she came home, she had her second birthday party (April 21) with cake and everything. Everyone at the farm adores her and we call her the genius baby because she is, obviously. She is pasture boarded and lives with my friend Amanda's mare, Zena. I've known Amanda and Queen Z for years, and Goose accompanied Zena on some of her first trail rides back in the day and they were adventure besties. It makes my heart happy that Tilly gets to live with Goose's old girlfriend. 

Right now, we're doing a lot of baby stuff. Her current skills include: 

• Standing on crossties with or without supervision (aka I'm watching through the window while grabbing something from the tack room)
• All manner of grooming and bathtime activities
• Standing and behaving for a farrier
• Standing and behaving for the vet (at two years old she let the vet flex her all around, GOOD GIRL)
• Fly spray and nose sunscreen
• Having her temp taken
• Ponying off a friend
• Wearing a surcingle or bareback pad with the girth on
• Lunging & free lunging 
• Walking over poles independently while on a long line/lungeline
• Trail walking
• Coming up to me and whinnying when I go to her field
• Leaving her pasture mates without fuss 
• Stepping on her own leadrope while grazing and calmly and cleverly working out how to disentangle herself without going bananas

You can't tell me that last skill isn't the best one. 

Trail walking superstar. We make sure to lead and follow with friends, and go out on our own. 

Things Tilly hates are as follows: 

• Getting her wound scrubbed out & treated
• Getting her mane pulled or bladed
• Clippers
• When I have Teddy on crossties next to her and am paying attention to him instead of her

"Why is HE in the picture?" Tilly, probably

There really isn't much that she doesn't like yet. Clippers we'll work on, I'm not worried about it. The mane thing is annoying but I insisted she let me pull it and I accidentally made her so ready to hate me that she hates when I even take a thinning blade to it. I'll own that one, should have given up on the pulling earlier. She can be a thick haired girly, I don't mind. But we WILL work on the blading until we're more tolerant.

I've been trying to take monthly-ish (because let's be real, good intentions and all that, but it doesn't happen every month) conformation shots of Tilly to document her body and growth and measure her height. I'll do another post about her breeding and pop those pictures in too. I got some updated shots this weekend since my friend Amy came to visit, which I'll also get to writing about at some point. 

Hope wherever you're reading this from is cooler than it is here - I know I say this every summer, but I am soooo over the heat.