Winter Blanket

Here's sort of a crappy picture of the quarters this morning.  Gwen's out wearing her blanket today because it's cold, she's skinny, and she doesn't have much of a winter coat.  Coriander's coat is much thicker and he tends to roll every time he goes out, so he's not going out with his blanket on if he doesn't need it.  I only have heavyweight blankets right now so I really have to watch the temperature, if it's much above 30 degrees they sweat in them. 

This is Gwen's first blanket ever and she hated it at first sight.  Well first sound actually, it crinkles - Gwen hates crinkling.  The first time I put her blanket on she gave it a full-fledged hairy eyeball while jumping around like a nut.  It was a very slow process.  When I finally got it on her and buckled on, the second wave kicked in after she found out that every time she moved it crinkled.  I got her in her stall and she alternated between standing rock still and spooking.  It would have been really funny if I wasn't completely paranoid about her hurting herself.  I think I slept for about 1 hour that night just thinking about all the awful things she could do to herself being silly about that blanket.  I was in the barn at 6 a.m. the next morning to take it off.

That was in October, she has improved so much since then that last night I was able to just walk into her stall and throw her blanket on without even tying her up.  I am mucho impressed.  Hopefully this will bode well when it comes time to put a saddle on her back.  We shall see.