I keep meaning to do blog posts of our “horse of the week” where I give you a bunch of juicy details and endearing photos of one specific horse. Currently, that’s 14 weeks’ worth of material. I’m calling it the “Informal” horse of the week series because I’m not that great at sticking to this blogging schedule. It might be the “Horse of the week” for a couple of weeks before I get to writing about the next one.
This week it’s Axel. Because it’s the first week and I’m going in alphabetical order.
Axel came to us as a 6 month old, barely-weaned fuzz ball. We got him in the dead of winter. Axel belonged to a herd of horses that had been abandoned in Montana in 2010. They were very well bred quarter horses, apparently.
I started Axel under saddle in 2013 as a 3 year old with Buck Brannaman. He acted like he was born broke. He’s been used on the trail rides, he’s worked cattle, been roped off of, and pretty much will do anything you ask. This year I plan to start jumping with him.
Axel is a character — a stinker and an ornery instigator in the herd. He never misses a chance to pester Wishbone, the current alpha who outweighs Axel by about double his weight.
Axel loves belly rubs. Yes. Really. He is always ready to ride and wants to be with his humans as much as possible. He hates trailer rides, but will get in the trailer anyway. He loves food, annoying other horses, food, being with people, food, and food. He hates the horse trailer (only when it’s moving), and not getting his way (he just has to learn to live with that!).
If you stop by and see the horses, Axel is easy to spot — he’s probably the one trying to get the other horses to play with him.
