From Betsy, Dory’s adopter:
A quick update on Dory .… it’s been almost a year!
After a couple of months of adjustments to the new barn and the new routine, Dory has settled in quite nicely. She has a nice pasture to run around with her best friend Jade, a 3yr old Lippenzaner (sp?) filly, and they are quite busy eating and drinking side by side, being very vocal and talkative, running around, taking apart hot tape fencing, etc and being silly young girls. It’s quite entertaining to watch them play. She is one of the barn favorites, especially when she makes her silly faces during grooming. She *loves* grooming and will lean in during currying, stretch out her neck, and make all kinds of silly faces and grunt. She also enjoys — of all things — her frogs and heels massaged and brushed. She’ll put up her feet at me and keep them up for a loooong time as long as I’m brushing and massaging. Funny girl! 
Dory started dressage training in January — we’ve been going very slowly given her age and my trainer and his apprentice have been very generous to include teaching me the training process as they go. A huge time commitment to get out to the barn 4x days a week to watch/participate in her training, do my “homework” with Dory, plus 2 days a week of lessons on the school masters for me. It’s been an amazing experience for me and working with Dory through the whole process has been a trip.
Dory is under saddle now since late June and is doing well at the walk and trot. We’ve introduced the canter depart and she can depart on either lead. She loves her “work” and gets quite vocal and impatient when we’re tacking up. At this point, Dory is continuing training but we’re backing off and doing light work at the walk and trot so she can take a mental break, rest, and just be a young horse for a bit. I’ve started riding Dory “solo” the past 2–3 weeks … she has her Dory-doodle moments under saddle but all in all she’s a very calm, sweet, smart girl.
Not sure what Dory and I will be doing — my trainer wants us to spend a good year together, relax, and do some light trail riding, etc. She and I are working out our communication under saddle right now — she knows that I’m not her trainer, I’m the sugar cube/massage lady, and so she’s trying to see where she can push her boundaries with me. And sometimes she gets frustrated because I don’t give the aids in exactly the same way (or I get confused with this demi volte haunches out on the outside primary type stuff and give the wrong aids!). She loves the dressage work and I’m geeking out on it as well, so we’ll continue with progessing with that regardless of what we end up “doing”. Endurance trail riding is still my goal but Dory will ultimately determine what she likes best and if it’s something else, I’m fine with that. I will say that she is a huge show off and there is a big difference in her posture and attitude when the barn is busy and peope are watching. The apprentice trainer would like to rider her in a local schooling show in November — I’ll send updates of where/when as we get closer to the date.
I am trying to get pictures under saddle … keep forgetting the camera or I bring it and get too busy with what I’m doing.
I had a professional photographer do a shoot this past week, here’s an updated photo of Dory:
