By Patty Wilber
Last Saturday was the first Back Country Horsemen, Pecos Chapter, training ride for 2012. I have been really busy teaching and riding my client horses. I haven’t had too much time for T and Penny. JD could really use a group ride, but I resisted and decided to take the two I actually plan to use on BCH projects this summer. (I get to take JD to Elephant Butte Lake 2/17 anyhow, weather permitting.)
Jim took Cometa, and I took T and Penny. We drove down to Town and Country Feed, right at the eastern edge of Albuquerque, 10 miles from us. They have a big parking lot and access to open space that reaches into the hills you just can see in the back ground of the picture below.
Penny is the lead horse and T is the pack horse. He is packing stove pellets--40 lbs on each side, in nice compact, easy to load bags. Great for training! And I got to practice my box hitch, which held!
There were 11 of us, and I ended up leading with Penny–down the scary narrow chute by the rental horses, to the muddy creek crossing. Penny has been over more than a few creeks, but the first water of the season some times can be interesting…but nope. She’s five now and we have logged a lot of miles. It’s starting to show! Yeah!
T, in his starring role as Pack Horse, at first had somewhat of an issue because a Big Black Long Ears was Right Behind him, but he settled very well–except for that one glitch where he wrapped the rope under Penny’s tail. She didn’t buck or pitch a fit. She just aimed, and kicked him.
I appreciated that she took it out on T instead of me!
We rode up and up and got a nice view.
Not a bad, for just outside a major city, eh?
It was getting windy, so we dropped off the ridge, found some nice trees to tie the horses to, and rocks for our picnic lunch. Then we headed on down, as the weather turned colder and windier.
We got home, just in time to show Curly Moe to a potential buyer. Julie had seen Curly Moe’s Blog, and already was a little smitten by his Very Cuteness.
But, she went to see another Fjord first. One that has been ridden quite a bit, and whom we thought might be a better match (even though Kathleen and I had our fingers crossed for Curly!). That other Fjord was having a bad day apparently, and did not make the cut.
Curly showed off his ground manners, rode really well (walked, trotted, turned, backed, sideways, bridge, gate, bent to a stop, halted on voice–he is a Very Smart Boy to have learned all that in 20 rides. The show day was ride 21.)
Then Julie rode him, and he was almost perfect! I was SO PROUD! Of course she had to buy him!
He will go to his new home about 5 hours south, in another week!
And lastly, some just for fun pics of Wednesday in Tijeras. I woke up, looked out the window and saw no snow on the deck railing. Dozed off of a bit and finally dragged myself out of bed, planning to feed real quick and head to work.
Opened up the basement door to….WOW. The snow was up to the tops of my rubber boots!
It had been windy, so had blown off my porch rail, completely fooling me! I got a few photos in the afternoon.
Lacey says, "longshot--look! she's got that box thing again! this one is blue tho!" Longshot says,"jd! u r closest! u check it out!"
Yep, that's a blue bath tub. I have a friend that had a blue toilet in his yard. I should have asked for it so I'd have a match for this tub! Lacey thinks snow in a blue tub MUST be different than all the other snow she'd been hanging around in all day, so she stuck her nose in it.
Curly in all his Cuteness.
Crazy mane! I thought it was fun that you can see my shadow, taking the picture and the shadow of Curly's head, too! We had fun on our snow ride!
Next week, I may have a little discussion on hernia repair, or maybe JD will have a feature on our trip to Elephant Butte!
Oh, good for Curly. I’ve ridden a couple of Fjords and liked the sensible disposition of both of those…are they as unflappable as a breed? One was…um…somewhat resistant to making nice corners and circles, and wanted me to carry his head for him (this was riding English, in a lesson) but with firmer leg cues kind of flicked an ear and indicated that he realized now I couldn’t be fooled and yes, he *could* bend. Whereupon he became flexible and soft as butter in my hands, really yielding his jaw. A very pleasant ride. The other, on a trail, was “Oh, you want to go up there, down there, around that? Sure, no probs.”
But two horses can’t define a breed characteristic, and you have more experience with ’em, so…what are they generally like?
Hi Elizabeth–we are all very excited for Curly and Julie! Fjords are very steady personalities as a general rule (and the ones I have worked with) have been/are all quite personable–a few took a bit to bond, but all did. They are a different sort of sensitive than, say, a thin skinned Arab, but with the right training can be awesome. With the wrong training they can get sullen. They tend to quit completely-stock still, you-can’t-move-me-with-a-bomb if they think they are not being treated fairly. And in my experience, I have had to create lightness in all that I have ridden, whereas in some other breeds, horses start out really light and then the trainer gets the chance to wreck it!