Teasing a stallion

If you had told me 5 years ago that our granddaughter would be teasing a stallion, I’d have looked at you in disbelief. But that’s exactly what Krista did today.
I had no idea what she meant by teasing a stallion. In this photo we’re standing in front of the teasing wall where the process took place earlier in the day. Krista held Mac the stallion by a lead rope on one side of the wall while another person brought several mares one by one to the other side of the wall. The stallion and mare sniff each other. A third person is keeping a record and watching to see which mares are in heat and ready to be bred. The private parts of the stallion and the mare need to be cleaned thoroughly and the mare is checked with a speculum to make sure she’s in heat. Krista checked a mare today. Once this process is completed, one mare is chosen for Mac and is put into a breeding area with him. A student holds Mac and another student holds the mare - both students are supervised by a teacher and the entire class watches the pair breed. Once this happens, the stallion is pulled off the mare and the mare is turned around to make sure she doesn’t kick him. The only steps that Krista hasn’t done so far are handling the mare or stallion during the actual breeding. She’ll be doing this next week. How awesome to learn how to do this and take part in a very natural process!
Krista just finished her week of chores, getting up at 4:30 every morning and going to the barn to feed the horses and muck out stalls before beginning her full day of classes, which start at 8:00. At the end of the day, she also fed them and mucked out the stalls. On those day, she’d be finished around 6:30 pm, but the group also rotated on a night feed, so for three days of her week of chores, she didn’t finish until around 8:45 pm. One tired young woman and she has a really bad cold, so she looks a bit weary and pale in this shot. Two days in a hotel with me and Gramps is giving her a chance to sleep, relax, and hopefully feel better. We’re loving being with her and hearing about all she’s learning and doing in her program. By the sounds of it, she’s adjusted well to res life and is happy at Olds.