Makeover P3 - A Path Forward

Loshenka ID No. 6513 Training Log Entry No. 30

Loshenka Makeover Challenge 2025

We are officially a couple of months into the 2025 Makeover Challenge, and Baku is doing well. We’ve completed his initial six week program with the chiropractor and the vet came out yesterday to do a check up on him. His coat continues to look amazing, in the sun he’s become with beautiful dark chocolate brown bay with such gorgeously contrasting white in his overo markings. And that tail! We’ve started braiding his tail to protect it in the hopes that he can continue to grow it out now that he’s getting some good balanced nutrition.

The vet actually says that he’s getting a little chunky, and that now that Baku’s pain levels are down so much, it’s time to start returning him to some gentle work to start rebuilding some of those muscles to hopefully bring those levels down to zero. 

Right now, the issue we’re running into is that Baku is very anti-tack. He seems to associate it with pain and even though he’s not really hurting anymore, he’s reacting in anticipation. 

The current plan is to start him off by continuing to take him into the cross ties and place the bareback pad with the girth on him. We will do up the girth super loosely, and reward the heck out him with treats. He’s been mostly behaving for this so far, he occasionally pins his ears at people when they “tighten” the girth (which isn’t tight at all), but we’re past the biting at least!

We’ll slowly work our way up to a properly tightened girth in the cross ties, and then we’ll start taking him outside for groundwork with the pad on and go from there. Once he behaves himself for all that we’ll start the process over again with a saddle.

Loshenka ID No. 6513 Training Log Entry No. 35

Loshenka Makeover Challenge 2025

We have made great progress in the last week! Baku is almost to the point of taking the bareback pad with a properly tightened girth. He is doing wonderfully out in pasture with some of the other studs and geldings. For a stallion, his personality is just absolutely amazing. He’s so sweet! 

Loshenka ID No. 6513 Training Log Entry No. 40

Loshenka Makeover Challenge 2025

We are officially to the point of being able to tighten the girth on the bareback pad all the way on Mr.Baku. He still reacts a little bit when you’re tightening the girth, but as long as you go slow, he does ok. It’s less of an immediate reaction, and more of a thoughtful “hey wait a moment, I think that should hurt but it doesn’t?”. We’re going to try taking him out into the round pen today to see how he does on the lunge line with the pad on.

Update: We took the big guy out into the round pen with the pad on, and the MOMENT we clucked at him to start moving he burst into a fit of bucking. He threw himself around the pen for a little bit and then stopped and stood there looking at me, ears up, nostrils flaring as he breathed heavily. I slowly approached, a little worried that he’d freak out at me again, but he let me get close enough to loosen the pad on him a little bit, which seemed to chill him out. I clipped his regular lead line back on and he and I just went for a calm walk around the round pen together until he’d fully cooled down. Looks like this is going to be tougher than all that! We’ll try again tomorrow, baby steps.

Loshenka ID No. 6513 Training Log Entry No. 55

Loshenka Makeover Challenge 2025

We are officially a couple of weeks into working with Baku in the round pen with his bareback pad on. He started explosively that first day, but with a little bit of work in the pen every day we are to the point where he will go through the motions on the lunge line with a fully tightened girth without having a nuclear meltdown. He’s even starting to stretch out in his trot and really seems to be enjoying working, now that it’s gotten through his skull that the pad isn’t going to hurt him. I also really think that not trying to put a person on him was absolutely the right decision. I’m not going to be putting anyone on this horse until his fuzzy grey butt can handle tack without losing it.

Loshenka ID No. 6513 Training Log Entry No. 65

Loshenka Makeover Challenge 2025

I put a saddle on Baku today! He was a little nervous when he saw me approaching with it, but I was able to set it on his back without any temper tantrums. We started with no girth, just a saddle sitting on him in the crossties for about 15 minutes and a king’s ransom in treats. We will keep working our way forward towards getting him fully tacked up, and maybe in a couple of months we can try putting a person on him?

Loshenka ID No. 6513 Training Log Entry No. 80

Loshenka Makeover Challenge 2025

It’s been three months exactly from the first time that we put Baku in a saddle again. We had a saddle fitter come out and custom fit his saddle to him, so it should be a good, comfortable saddle for him. So, today was the first time I’ve ridden him! He was a little apprehensive and suspicious of me when I led him out to the arena all tacked up, but he stood at the mounting block like a good boy. Today, all we did was sit next to the mounting block for a few minutes until I felt him relax, I had him do a small circle around back to the block and then I got off. I really don’t want to be bucked off such a big horse, so I am very content to take this super slow and at his pace.

Loshenka ID No. 6513 Training Log Entry No. 90

Loshenka Makeover Challenge 2025

It’s been about a month since I started actually riding Baku, and he has been such a good boy! He usually starts our sessions a little tense, but once we’ve walked for a little while around the arena he relaxes. I think it’s taking a while for his brain to accept that tack + being ridden doesn’t equal pain. 

As he’s relaxed in our sessions, I’ve learned that he has amazing movement! His training is definitely lacking a couple of buttons, but given that he came from a dude ranch, I’m not entirely surprised. 

Loshenka ID No. 6513 Training Log Entry No. 100

Loshenka Makeover Challenge 2025

This will probably be my last entry in my makeover diary for 2025. We’re ending this on a high note! Baku has been a wonderful horse to work with, even if he was slightly terrifying when we first started putting that pad on him. While he has been very suspicious of his tack, and it’s clear that he’s a horse who changes his mind slowly, I think we’re on the right track with him. It’ll probably be another year-ish? Until he’s ready to start showing, at least in my estimation. I think we’re going to aim to show him in trail classes given his history and how much he seems to prefer being out in the pasture to being in the arena. Overall, I am very happy with his progress, and I very much look forward to continuing working with him!