Our newest addition to the herd, Pepperoni (SCR CD Peptoes), is a two-year-old AQHA gelding, bred at the renowned Spur Cross Ranch and donated to the Legends of Ranching program at Colorado State University. I went to the horse sale back in April, because I am on the CSU Equine advisory committee and also to help my friend Helen buy a horse (she got an awesome 4 yo gelding). I didn’t plan to come home with a horse, but Pepper stole my heart! I was smitten by his athleticism, his beauty and his temperament. The student trainer that handled him was definitely a top-hand and had clearly done an excellent job starting him. He was working well under saddle and clearly had a BIG motor (which I like).

I got Pepper home at the end of April and between my travel schedule and the fact that Pepper needed resting after a hard semester at college, I’ve done very little with him since. He’s well settled into our herd, with Dually (Uncle Daddy) and Eddie (Uncle Brutus), supervising his every move.

Now that I am on my “summer break,” and spending more time at home, I am able to start working with Pepper on a more consistent basis. He’s still quite young and it’s not my intention to push him, but he’s got a great start in his training and I don’t want to lose ground. The other day, I saddled him and worked him in the round pen for the first time. I’m very specific about what I ask a horse to do in the round pen, so he had to work at understanding what I was asking. Fortunately, he’s smart as a whip and a real thinker. In a few minutes, he was doing outside and inside turns, depending on what I asked. He bucked the saddle a little bit—nothing too dramatic. I noticed his bucks actually looked pretty smooth—almost like a porpoise arching out of the water. Since I haven’t yet figured out a bit/bridle for the colt, I didn’t do much more with him other than mount and dismount a few times.

I’m very eager to start riding Pepper! But I really want to bring him along slowly. He is entered in the LOR Futurity in April of next year, but we’ve got plenty of time to get ready for that over the winter. If you’re interested in watching Pepper’s progress, check out his new web series, The Adventures of Pepperoni, on my YouTube Channel!