Henry followed Jessie out to the round pen and stood outside of it watching as Jessie slipped a halter on the gray colt for the first time. Up until that point all the work that had been done with the colt had been done at liberty. Nearly two weeks had passed since Jessie had first gone in with him carrying the halter on her arm, but until that day, she had never taken it off her arm, with the exception of switching it to her other arm so the colt knew it was there.

By this time the colt was fairly comfortable with both Jessie and Henry coming up to him, and even touching him. He was still leery of having his feet handled, but that would come with time. On this day, Jessie began by rubbing the colt on his face with her hand, something he actually seemed to enjoy. She then removed the halter and lead rope from her arm and gently touched his face with it in the same areas she had with her hands. Finally, she began sliding the halter over his nose, a little at a time at first, and then farther and farther until she was able slip it over his nose, reach over his neck, take a hold of the strap that would fit just behind his ears, and buckle it in place on his head.

Other than the colt raising his head slightly when she reached over his neck, he seemed to accept the process without any worry. The colt had been following Jessie and Henry around in the pen for nearly two weeks by that time, so when Jessie began walking, the colt followed as he always had. So it was that his first leading lesson went without much of a hitch. She led him around the pen for half a dozen laps, then removed the halter and left the pen. The lesson for the day was over.

It surprised Henry to see how easy Jessie made the whole process look. On any of the other outfits he’d worked in the past, getting a halter on a horse for the first time, particularly a wild horse, was usually quite an ordeal and generally wouldn’t end as quietly as this had. Yet everything Jessie did with horses was quiet. And even if it didn’t start quietly, like the first day with the colt when he ran mindlessly around the pen for nearly forty laps, it always ended quietly.

“We’ll do it again tomorrow,” she said with a smile as she hung the halter on a peg just outside the pen’s gate. “If we can get him leading well, we can get him out of this pen. We’ll need to get him moving off the pressure of the rope, which he might struggle with a little. He’s done everything so well up till now I can’t imagine he’ll have too much trouble.”

“I don’t know when I’ve ever seen a more willing animal, that’s for sure,” Henry commented as they turned to head back to the barn.