Makeover P1 - First Impressions

Loshenka ID No. 6513 Training Log Entry No. 1

Loshenka Makeover Challenge 2025

Issues: Bucking, Stopping

History: 6513 is a Loshenka Stallion, approximately 8 or 9 years old. Coloring is Silver Bay Overo. Horse also possesses the Rapunzel mutation.This horse was a trail horse at a dude ranch from the approximate ages of 6-8. Previous owners started to experience issues where he would stop randomly during rides, and more recently, he started bucking customers off. Prior owners stated that they “didn’t have time” to deal with his issues and have left him with the local Loshenka Sanctuary. The sanctuary reports that they have found white hairs at his withers, and a sour expression when being tacked up. Ill-fitting tack leading to pain issues in his back may explain the issues we’re seeing.

I picked up our 2025 Loshenka makeover horse today! He didn’t come with a name, just an ID number, 6513. Hopefully as he spends some time with us and his personality starts to show, a good name for him will become apparent. I picked him up from the sanctuary. They offered to deliver him, but I thought that how he loads with an unfamiliar handler could say a lot about his temperament, so I politely declined. He’s a big horse! He hasn’t been sticked yet, but I would estimate him at about 17 hands? I’m glad that I opted to take the warmblood sized trailer instead of one of the others. When I got there, he was standing in one of the sanctuary’s little paddock runs towards the front of the facility. Through the fence, he seemed friendly enough. His face was relaxed, eyes bright, and he came over to see if I had any snacks for him. Once he determined that I didn’t, he lazily wandered off to the other side of the turn-out to see if he could attract a lady two paddocks down who was giving her horse treats. I guess hope springs eternal!

The folks at the sanctuary were so kind, and after I chatted with them for a little while, filled out some paperwork, and took down his history, they handed me his halter and told me to let them know when I was ready to load. In the meantime, they suggested that I take him over to one of their cross-tie stalls and groom him and get to know him a bit. The gal I was talking to seemed to think that it would give me some insight into what’s going on with him and why he’d been surrendered there.

I will say that he’s a really cute horse. He’s a very dark bay, in low light I could see someone thinking he was almost black. He has this incredibly striking, long, bright silver tail. It’s very high-contrast and super flashy. I could absolutely see this being an advantage in the show ring, if showing is in his future. He is also an overo, with fairly minimal white on his body, but his face is pretty much bald. He’s blue-eyed and has pink skin around his muzzle and eyes. I will have to make sure that we sunscreen his muzzle and fly-mask him in turnout to protect his delicate (not so) little face!

I digress. 

I took the halter they gave me, it wasn’t anything fancy, just a basic leather halter and medium length lead rope, and went to fetch 6513. He was an easy catch! It was very clear that he was used to people, if not fond of people, and that he had no problem being handled on the ground. As we walked over to the grooming area he followed at my side without pulling or getting ahead of me. I stopped a couple of times to see what he’d do and he stopped with me and gave me a look of “what? Why?”. Overall, I’ve found his ground manners to be impeccable, and he’s obviously been very well trained.

I got him settled in the cross-tie area the volunteer had pointed out to me, and found the bucket of grooming supplies labeled with his number on it. To reduce the risk of the rescues spreading skin diseases and the like, the sanctuary apparently keeps a separate grooming bucket for each horse, and once a horse leaves they disinfect it for the next one. Kind of a cool system, and definitely something I’ll keep in mind.

I started grooming him like usual, with the curry provided to me. It was one of those jelly/hard rubber curries, with particularly prominent little teeth. As I worked my way down his neck he was fine, over his haunches was fine, but as soon as I got up onto his back, even with light pressure, his ears went straight back and he tried to nip at me! 

I set the curry down and gently ran my hand up his spine, gently applying pressure on either side, starting by his tail. I kept an eye on his ears while doing to this, to try and locate the source of the pain. Nothing exciting happened until about mid-back, when his ears started to flick and he noticeably started to tense. I talked to him as I kept going, telling him how sorry I was that figuring out how to fix his pain meant first causing some. 

A couple of inches below his withers his ears went fully flat, and he gave me some serious side-eye. I could definitely feel some tension in that area, and while I’m no chiropractor, it didn’t necessarily feel to me like everything was in its proper place. It was also in this area that I noticed that he had a patch on either side of his withers that had hair that looked to be growing back, like it had been rubbed off at some point. He also had a smattering of white hairs that looked like they might be sitting over scars from previous rub marks.

I can see why the volunteers suggested I groom him to get a feel for what’s going on. It would appear that the poor bay has been subject to some seriously poor fitting tack and it’s throwing things out of whack for him.

I finished our little grooming session, careful to avoid putting too much pressure on his sore spots, put all his brushes and combs back in his little labeled bucket, and wrapped his legs for the trailer ride home. His back might be a mess, but this stud has some gorgeous legs and hooves. Between his generally sweet temperament and his fantastic conformation, I’m really hopeful that if we can fix his back pain issues he could have a pretty successful show career. His scars probably would disqualify him from the halter circuit, which is too bad, but depending on what discipline he excels in, there are a lot of other options.

I made sure to call the volunteer who’d offered to help me load once I had him appropriately bubble-wrapped. I generally try not to load horses alone the first few times I work with them, not until I’m more sure that I understand how their brains work.

His loading was a bit of a non-event. I’m guessing that in his previous life at the dude ranch, he had to load often, because he popped up into the trailer like it was nothing and was looking at us like “well? Where are we going?”.

He unloaded at home just as easily as he’d loaded, and I’ve got him in one of the foaling stalls at the end of the barn so that he can have a little more room as he gets settled.I did a little bit of musical horses to make sure that he has geldings directly next to and opposite of him, I don’t want him to get all studly and worked up because there are girls around. It was really cute seeing him touch noses with the horse next to him, a little 15 hand gelding owned by one of our borders. The size difference was almost comical!

After this first meeting, I am really hopeful for the rehabilitation of this horse.