Regarding the Horses in our lives...

[Goldy Show Hens]

Quote: Beautiful pictures!
Thanks that horse is amazing. She is showing this weekend, then I will be gone, so when I get back I can post some more photos of 5 year old Ruby

 

[seminolewind]

Here is the only picture I can find Pocket:


-Kathy

Nice pic! Yes Dressage is hard work, or rather show Dressage is hard work. My Prisma and I play like it's a game.

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:
Yea scores were way different. And funny, the rides more correct. I basically scored in the 50's on a 22 year old gelding . He was an energetic horse.

I love this book "Another Horsemanship" by Jean Claude Racinet. I have Podhajsky and like it. I've read so many books, it's hard to remember which one was better. I just started reading Steinbrecht Gymnastics, will have to look for the right name. I will have to peak at De Kunffy.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Yea scores were way different. And funny, the rides more correct. I basically scored in the 50's on a 22 year old gelding . He was an energetic horse.

I love this book "Another Horsemanship" by Jean Claude Racinet. I have Podhajsky and like it. I've read so many books, it's hard to remember which one was better. I just started reading Steinbrecht Gymnastics, will have to look for the right name. I will have to peak at De Kunffy.

I read Podhajsky on my own on the recommendation of an acquaintance that did three day eventing before I ever heard of it.. Then at the suggestion of the only trainer I ever had I read De Kunffy... it was soo funny at the ripe old age of 21 I was learning Dressage from a 17 year old... Lurena had more talent in her pinky finger than I would ever have in a lifetime....

Both had excellent discussions on what to train a young horse from foal up to beginning riding.... My gelding Marc got as much of that insight as I could translate and implement... they stress forward with youngsters... and not pulling on the halter... That was a break from what I was taught about youngsters... But I used the butt rope alot and had a horse that was always willing to be lead without resisitance. Even was able to turn a resisting horse into a willing partner on the lead... with the gentle aid of a dressage whip.

De Kunffy was the trainer for the Austrian Olympic team I believe... http://www.charlesdekunffy.com/bio.html

But really all this "stuff" is representative of only two Masters of the art... From classical European education... Each of us use what suits us and our needs... in my case my need to improve my communication with my horse.... Wether it be on the ground in the saddle or sitting on the seat of a carriage.

Heck I have probably done a thousand miles bareback no pad and a hackamore bridle... or halter even... Yet knowing how to uses your legs and seat to change gait your communication becomes more and more subtle.

I cant do any of it any more.... But I sure can appreciate people who do even if only to go out and make a treat of bran and carrots and apples and sit and enjoy those happy smaky horsie noises... and get a few sloppy kisses in the process.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote: thats really how it should be... I used to set up obsticles while we practiced... step overs or stuff to make you turn a little tigher... like a pole bending pole or a barrel... Helps with the boredom of practice because the horse sees a goal to the process.

I used to long line Katee all over the trail course till the ranch owner told me to quit driving her over the bridge.... she was affraid katee would break it or get hurt.... LOL

deb

 

[seminolewind]

Katee is one huge horse!!! How did you end up with a big horse like that?

 

[perchie.girl]

Katee is one huge horse!!! How did you end up with a big horse like that?

I picked her out.... LOL... Shes actually small for a Percheron. When shes fit shes only about 1800 lbs... And at17.1 hands she wears a Warmblood sized halter and bridle. I bought her a draft horse saddle... and it was too wide and it was too long. It sat down on her withers and bridged her back. So she has a really nice LARGE Arab shaped back....

almost impossible to fit without going to a saddle maker. I did find one that fit and it WAS made by a custom saddle maker.... It still bridged but If I were to persue riding I would only need to buy a custom gel pad for it.

I have an acquaintence who has a full on team... and more because she breeds she probably has about twenty four drafts at any given time. She shows, or her husband shows a full on hitch team. Like the budweiser team. Six horses hitched to a big wagon. Their wheelers... the ones that are closest to the Hitch wagon are 22 hands and 2500 lbs each.... Swwwweeeet Amish bred and trained. I went to visit her back in 2001 and she wanted to show them to me... I went a head of her down to their barn area... She said to me... "they aren't friendly because they were Amish trained"

they had them tied behind the barn....in their paddock... So her husband went in to turn them loose... Both immediately came to the fence and dropped their heads over for a skirtch... I am five foot seven and a half.... Their heads were easily four foot long.... And they were two years old....

Already with size seven shoes... Katee would only wear fives on front If I ever shoe her... not going to happen...

Katee and me

Her head is as long as my toreso... I am five eight that makes her head thirty six inches long from poll to tip of nose



When I bought Katee I was running about 300 lbs... still fit enough to walk a considerable amount. i had been away from horses a good eight years raising up my son. So at the time he was about nine. I wanted to ride again but I was thinking my weight would be an issue for a light horse... not for the horse but for other people watching me...

I also wanted a horse that I could drive that was bred for driving... A warmblood would have been perfect.... they were originally developed as carraige horses. But back in 2000 Warmbloods were just really coming into their own around hear and way out of my prices range. Even the Draft crosses were newly being promoted as sport horses I couldnt touch a good dressage quality cross for less then three thousand dollars.

I would have loved a Friesian... but they were astronomical at the time... So I started reading up on Percherons... Percherons and or crosses were historically used as fox hunters or heavy hunters. And I found one that was Grand Prix Level Dressage.... His name was Cotton Wood Flame....



So I started looking at what was available from Texas up to Washington state.... And I found that well bred percherons were within my price range... So I could get a purebred horse for the same as I could a cross. About three thousand dollars. Back then I was an engineer for a major coroporation.... I thought Now would be the time to buy my first purebred and do a good job of it.

My chriteria...

At least seventeen hands
An intact tail
Black
At least four or five years old
Green broke
Barefoot....

I figured I was writing myself out of having one... Till I saw this picture postage stamped size in a horses for sale listing out of San Francisco. She looked like an old time Morgan At the time of the picture she was five years old.



She was in Washougal Washington. Danise, the owner at the time, had seen her at a draft horse expo or something when she was a yearling... at the time Katee was fifteen hands... Then On Danise's birthday a horse trailer shows up... And out comes Katee with a big red bow in her forelock... She was a long one year old... and a birthday present... Danise was five foot nothing.

Their farm was raising paints... Nice compact western pleasure Paint Quarterhorses. At the time pinto Drafts were a devleloping breed drafts crossed with Paints could be registered as Paint Drafts. I believe their idea was to breed her to their Quarter horse stallion...

Katee had other plans....

they put her in with a young Quarterhorse stallion and she taught him manners. They really never did anything with her... a big plus. except take good care of her and not let her become Obese... And she had grown two full hands during the time they had her...

People think that just because they are twice the size of a light horse they eat twice as much... In fact draft horses have a different physiology than light horses. They have much much more slow twich muscle than light horses... so pound for pound they require less.

Light horses require 2.0 percent of their body weight of feed under light exercise.
Draft horses require 1.5 percent of their body weight in feed under light exercise.

If I were to feed her Alfalfa, her favorite, she would be getting two heavy flakes per day or about thirty pounds. So instead I free feed her a whole bale of bermuda at a time. it lasts about 3.5 days... Our bales run about 110 to 125 lbs each.

Makes it easier to live and not have to worry about getting up early to feed or be home at a certain time... no worrying on her part.

deb

 

[Peaches Lee]

At 7 last night I just up and left and went to the barn to get away from the world, LOL. She a Tennessee walker and I have recently gotten tired of just going round and round. So now she does a really nice shoulder in , and now a nice bend. Also we've learned something like a walk pirouette without just swiveling on one leg. She has always been one that can walk in place when I ask and I never taught that. So now I'm going with it and working on collection, walk, halts, backing, etc, and hopefully one day she will give a nice piaffe. She's done it a few times but not consistently.

I've always loved dressage, but over the past years it's gotten to the point that they all ride these horses with their noses practically on their chests. It's sickening. For the last thousand years , a proper posture for a horse has been face vertical or nose slightly ahead of vertical. It's written in the rules. So why do judges do nothing about it? If a person needs to hold the horse's nose toward their chest, I call that cheating and not doing a true collection. So now I'm practicing classical dressage, where the horse must always have a relaxed jaw, and this automatically leads to the horse keeping a proper posture on his own on fairly loose reins, and collect himself without being manually compressed. Seems that this method is much more concerned about having a happy horse. To compete at an olympic level with modern dressage, there's a whole lot of nasty things going on. Nosebands called "crank nosebands", a nasty exercise called Rollkur . I need to get off my soap box, LOL

Dressage is sort of getting away from fundamentally correct to flash and extravagance. I think, just like any other fad, it will fade away (I think it already has actually). Oh and crank nosebands, that seems to be a bit of a misnomer, as they are actually a more comfortable fit because they apply even pressure around the nose and jaw when tightened instead of a dare I say, pinch, at the bottom of the jaw of a traditional noseband and are very well padded. Not to say traditional nosebands cause any sort of discomfort for I feel that is clearly not the case. I love Dressage, a wonderful practice that is good for all horses!

 

[perchie.girl]

I have looked at Crank nose bands... I never liked dropped nosebands when they came out... But I feel that a horse needs to be able to chew a little... they seem to lock the horses mouth in a single position...

I use a regular non anything nose band for driving... set with a fingers worth of space... how I was taught in the sixties. If my horse opened her mouth I was doing something wrong... Wrong bit or wrong use of aids...

I am only expressing my limited experience.... I understand that what works for one will not work for the other.
And that my education may not be as rounded as some.

deb

 

[seminolewind]

If I ever bought a crank it would be for the cushy comfort. I was watching utube the other night, like every night, and Isabell Werth has this horse named Bella Rose (?). If you see that horse just standing there, she does not look well put together. But out in the ring, she's a beauty! And I am very happy to see that some people actually do ride the old (correct) way. Werth rides that horse with a very correct posture and head carriage. And I was thinking that the mare looked to me like she was going to be tough to hold together, but no, she is good! She got an 85% at Aachen 2014, and cried leaving the ring.

Which leads me to a question. How can a rider ride their test with their horse's nose far behind the vertical and score a movement well? Shouldn't it be that if the horse's posture is incorrect, how can the movement be correct? Sure Totilas is a phenomenal horse, but what would he be if he was ridden with his nose slightly ahead of the vertical??? Would it be the same? I had alot of respect for Gal until I saw warm up and training videos of him and Totilas. Made me sick.

Deb, that's a beautiful story. What a beautiful picture of you in your show clothes. Just lovely.