UPDATED: Attention Friesian lovers!!

On September 13th, there is going to be a show/clinic at Ots Sunrise Farms (a Friesian and Akhal-teke farm located here). The clinics start at 2pm and go until 6. The show "Night of the Horse" is at 7pm, and will include performers from Arabian Nights, Equitana USA, Equine Affair, Medieval Times, and the Midwest Horse Fair. I'm not sure at what time this event ends. There will be four clinicians there: Yvonne and Kim Barteau, Endel Ots, and Wayne Boyers. Yvonne is talking about 'defining horse personalities' at 2, Wayne is doing a 'liberty training (and the relationship with your horse') demo at 2:45, Kim's subject is 'starting young horses' at 3:30 in the round pen, and Endel has 'choosing a dressage horse' at 4:45. Also, I heard there is going to be a freestyle demo at 5, but that's not advertised on the flyer I have, so I'm not positive on that. Just so you know, these times are not set in stone: they might fluctuate depending on how long each clinician talks for.

This event is NOT free to the public (sorry, it was supposed to be free, but due to the high-end clinicians coming they decided to charge money). Tickets cost $45 for the clinics and the show, or $25 for the show only, or clinics only (kids under 10 are free, limit 1 per adult). The tickets can be bought at Tammy's Tack and Feed in Suamico or Horsey Habit in Manitowoc. So, if you're interested in seeing some Friesians, this is the place to be!!! But I must mention that these trainers are not natural, BTW. Still, it will be very exciting to see!!

Lastly, if anyone has read Yvonne Barteau's book Ride the Right Horse it has a different way of classifying horsenalities (though I like Parelli's way better, it's still interesting to get others' views). The book gives a bit of information about Yvonne, too. And also, it talks a little bit about Arabian Nights, since Mrs. Barteau used to work there. And Horsin' Around members, I will be bringing flyers to Heidi's bonfire if anyone wants one.

The Moose stops here!!

Yes, he does. I couldn't say when: it might be a week, it might be in a month! But Moose is a horse! And he's mine . . . :)

Basically, my mom and I went to look at a horse yesterday.

[caption id="attachment_201" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Isn't he huge!?!?!"][/caption]

It was a 4 and a 1/2 hour drive!! So, the ride was a little long, but well worth it! The horse's name is Moose (he looks like one, lol) and he's a 17hh Thoroughbred who has never raced! Well, I played with him for a while and it was really difficult to figure out what his horsenanlity was! There was a ton of flies swarming him so he was constantly nipping at them, and he kept licking his lips because he was slobbering. So, it was kind of hard! I think he is a LBE, but he had more whoa than go so I guess we'll see.

Well as for the 7 games, he was a quick learner. Friendly had no problems, nor did Porcupine or driving. He had problems with the circling game, so he didn't understand sideways or squeeze either. Apparently, this was the first time he'd ever been in their round pen before, so he was pretty confused. Also, he had only been ridden once (the day before we saw him) in about a year, so I'm sure it was strange to be out of his normal routine, too.

[caption id="attachment_203" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="I think I look the right size for him, don't you?"][/caption]

Well, after I played with him, I rode him around in the ring a little bit. His trot is so SMOOTH! It's almost like you're walking, not trotting. Boy is that different than riding my lesson horse, holy cow! But height-wise, OMG he was HUGE!!!! While riding I actually felt SMALL (and I'm 5'8")! I could barely put my arm over his back while on the ground, and he comes up to about my nose!! It was amazing, lol! And I bet you couldn't guess how much we paid for him! HINT HINT: think 4 digits!

Well, the ad I saw him in said that he's never spooked before, so we took him on a little trail ride. Well, I have to say he did pretty well. Most of the horses I know go RB every time they're ridden outside the pasture, and he wasn't bad at all! His ears were flickering quite a bit, but he had a low head set and I couldn't feel any tension in him. Also, we ran into a stream going by and I wasn't sure what he did about water. HA! He walked right

[caption id="attachment_205" align="alignright" width="300" caption="The Friendly game. If you look at his head only, you can see why he's called Moose!"][/caption]

through it like it wasn't there! Actually, he wanted to stay and play like another little mud puppy I know (Dancer, lol)! Anyways, while riding I noticed an interesting thing about him. Sometimes, when I'd ask him to move over, he'd move his head over fine, but his legs still kept walking in the same direction. So, I'll have to fix that, because I kept running into branches, lol.

But I felt so bad for him, since the flies were so awful and they didn't have bug spray! I saw a fly there that was about 4x as big as a horsefly, no joke! They said that the only time they've ever seen him buck (there was no rider aboard) was when one of those flies landed on him. I can see why, jeez!

News Alert!!!!

Okay, I have 3 new things. Super excited right now, but I might as well go in order!

First order of business: Okay, so I found a horse online the other day, I think she was a Quarter Horse. Well, this horse had never been around other horses before. And I was thinking that the foundation of Parelli is to communicate with horses like their mothers. Well, what if she had been orphaned and was never taught the horse language (because this horse grew up around cattle, it says she's never been around horses before)? Would she still instinctively know the 'horse language?' Because I thought it was something that has to be taught to them from their mothers. . . I mean, what if she was orphaned and raised by people, would Parelli still work with her? What do you think?

Second thing: Went to see a horse today (details in next post, ahhh!!!), and the people who owned him also had Friesians. They have about 8 or 9 Friesians that they're trying to sell and the cheapest one is $8,900 and the most expensive is $14,000 (prices are negotiable, they need to sell ASAP: they're moving to TN). If you know of anyone that does Parelli and wants a Friesian, then please contact godfollower on the Parelli Savvy Club. They want Parelli homes ONLY for all of the Friesians but two! So, please, spread the word!!

Soaring Sideways!

I'm really starting to wonder what's up with Dancer! She's RBE every time I play with her lately! I wonder if I'm accidentally making her RB, or what? Hmm, I'll have to think about that one.

Well. . . on a good note, we played with the Sideways game today!! That was my main focus, since Dancer could use some help with it. I had looked through my notes from the Madison tour stop the other day, and when Pat got the horse to go sideways, he said to walk and waggle your stick. So, I lined Dancer up and started walking and waggling (MISTAKE: next time, I'm using the carrot stick to waggle, because using the rope doesn't work well). She ran around quite a bit and it took a ways before she tried to move her forehand over. Eventually, she did and I gave her a minute or two to think about it. So, I did that a few times. One of the times, I ran out of fence and had to turn around and walk back the other way! Well, I ended the session on her moving sideways after I had walked only a little ways which was quite the accomplishment for her! So, I'm happy that I can help her with her sideways!!

A Horseman's Secret

I found a nice story on the Parelli forum:

Once there was a young cowboy working with horses and running into problems.
An old horseman came by and saw him struggling.
He asked the young man:
"Would you like to know the secrets of being a good horseman?"
"I would love to" the young man said.
The horseman held out a closed hand and said:
"If you can open this fist you will know the secret."
So...the young man pulled and pushed...and poked and struggled, then finally he gave up.
"I give up, I cant open it. What is the secret to open your fist?"
"You could have just asked me to" the horseman responded!

So, a nice message there. For another story, I played with Dancer yesterday and she was really RBE in the beginning. So, we flew sideways and backwards and I matched her energy the whole time! I also set up a little course for her to keep her interested in me.

And I found out that I don't know how to be the alpha with Dancer very well. Whenever I play with her, it always feels like we're both fighting for that #1 spot. So, Dancer never really has a ton of respect for me, because I don't know how to earn it yet!

But at least I'm not doing that badly! Dancer decided to roll while on line! There was a bunch of mud in her pasture, and since she was sweaty she took a couple of rolls. So, I can't be that bad or else she wouldn't feel safe enough to roll! Well, it was quite cute!

And the next prospect is . . .

My mom and I made a 2 hour trip out to go see a Thoroughbred named Stella yesterday. She's about 15.2 and was SOOO calm 4 a Thoroughbred. That made me happy, lol. Anyways, the ride there was uneventful. Once we got out of the car, her owner Maggie said hi. And then, I saw her. Oh, boy! The poor pony, Stella was sooo thin!! I mean, it wasn't like neglected thin, but she was too thin! My mom guessed that she could use about 150 pounds. But then again, we're used to seeing fat horses, so that might have been WAY off!

Well, I took out my 12' and played with her for a while. She was sleepy at the beginning. Once I woke her up, she was acting kind of RBI. So, I went slow and made sure that she understood things (she had done some Parelli before). Then, she flipped to LBI and really started thinking. Well, Friendly game is great; Porcupine needed some more work, she usually got around phase 2/3; Driving HQ phase 2, FQ phase 3; Yo-yo phase 2/3; Circling was in need of improvement; Sideways was good, but her HQ lagged behind; Squeeze was alright, but she didn't really understand it.

After she was deemed ridable, Maggie got on and showed us Ms. Stella. They looked quite impressive together, I must admit. But Stella didn't want to go, that's for sure! Actually, it was interesting, because it was hard to make her go, but once she was going she didn't want to stop! So, I'm not sure what I'd rate her on the Impulsion scale: she'd need straight lines and circles!

After Maggie was done showing her off, it was my turn to give her a try! I got on and realized really quickly that Stella moved predominantly from leg cues. Now, I tend to use my hands more than my legs so that was an interesting experience for me. And she was a bit testy, like going in a different direction (duh, tit for tat. . . blanked on that one) and such. She was interesting, though because sometimes she was RBI about it. Like there was a corner that she avoided, and I'm pretty sure she was scared of it, for whatever reason. Though, I'm happy that I got to change her impulsion a little bit. I was having trouble getting her to trot so I did some straight lines. She trotted much easier, then!

So, I've been thinking and I've decided that Stella might work for me. She has a lot going for her, that's for sure (knows Parelli, a CALM Thoroughbred, tall, etc), but she also has some major faults. She's never been on trails before! And I'm looking for a trail horse, but I'm prepared to take the time it takes to get her to do well on trails, so I think I can handle that. The two/three things that really have my parents worried are that she's thin (and a hard keeper), and that she cribs. The cribbing wouldn't that bad, she'd be outside 24/7 anyway. The only thing is that her front teeth are really worn down from it. The thin part would be bad, though, because in my parents' opinions thin means health issues (and money spent). Did I mention that Stella had a cold, too? So, she'd definitely have to pass a vet check before any concrete plans are going to happen.

Well, I guess we'll just have to see. At the moment, I don't really think I'm going to get her, because we just didn't have that chemistry. . . Ahh, well another learning experience. I'll update if I change my mind.

Sweet Success

I played with Dancer last night. She actually ran to me, too. I was shocked, because I thought she'd hate me (our session 2 days ago didn't go very well)! So that's exciting.

Let's see, we started out doing some jumping. I actually got her to jump over a barrel twice! Though, she went a little RBE, but that was over quick. I arranged the barrels in a 'L' pattern and we played with that a little bit. And I realized how sensitive Dancer is to the Yo-yo game. She was consistently backing off of Phase 1 which is pretty good for her!

Then, I decided to try some trailer loading, since Dancer needs a tiny bit more help with that. She did really good!! After a while, I got it so that she was actually confident to load all the way in and come out. So, that was really good! Plus, she was offering to go in when I hadn't asked. Eventually, I had to ask her to circle, because she wouldn't let me close the trailer up!! Lol.

After that I took her outside to eat some grass. She had a RBE episode. Since I only had a 12' rope on her, I had her run back and forth in a half-circle while I had my back to a fence. I tried to back her up a little after and she reared up. Interesting, because I thought when horses go RBE, you're supposed to back them up to something (or put their nose/foot on something)?

Next, I took her back in the pasture and tried some porcupine on FQ and Sideways. She still doesn't really understand Sideways: she'll move her HQ, but she doesn't move her FQ yet. But she'll get there! Also, I got her to pivot on her FQ turn. I took her halter off at that, because her FQ are like a chair that weighs 2 tons!

To be, or not to be RBE. . .

I guess that's the question. Do I or do I not want a RBE? Hmmm. Tough choice. Their pros and cons are numerous, that's for sure. Hmmph. . .

Once upon a time at Ot's Sunrise Farms *drool* there was but a slight chill in the air as two women stepped out of their car. The younger lady had thin blonde hair, twirling at every breeze. Her ordinary blue eyes assessed the grand stable before her. As recognition settled in, she spoke loudly "Yep, we're here alright!" The other woman, her mother, nodded.

Yep, so my mom and I were at Ot's. Looking at a horse. Tada! So . . . details: The horse is named Vittorion.

[caption id="attachment_163" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Looks mostly Morgan to me. What a great confirmation shot, though!"][/caption]

He's an Akhal-Teke/ Morgan cross. And he was pretty RBE. So, now we'll get into the story.

Alrighty, so the lady gets Vittorion and asks where I want him: in the arena or roundpen. I decide roundpen. All the better for groundwork, right? So, the lady opens the door and leads Vittorion in. And takes his halter off. And he starts running. Obviously, she thought I wanted to lunge him.

So, I get my 22' rope and halter and go stand in the middle of the pen. Boy, was I in an interesting situation: I mean, how do I catch a galloping RBE horse with no halter? I asked his owner what she usually did to catch him. She's like "Oh, he'll usually come to me sometimes, but I haven't lunged him in a while," which got me thinking "Oh, boy!" I thought for a couple minutes and then just decided that I'd try and act as non-threatening as possible. So, I just kind of walked around and tried to give him as much space as possible. After a couple of minutes, he decided to come to me. I petted him with the halter all over, but he wasn't paying me any attention now, because he could see his buddies. I tried to get the halter on, but he wanted to run again, so I said "let me help you!" Then, I went back to being non-threatening and after walking around a little bit, I went over to the other side of the pen and turned my back to him. He came up to me again. This time he let me put the halter on. :)

Now, I'm going to allow myself a little room to ramble. The reason being that this horse was AMAZING!! Granted, I haven't seen many RBEs, but this one was incredible!!! SOOOOO sensitive! I played with him for only an hour, and it was like he already knew Parelli (and I know for a fact he didn't)!! I wish I could've gotten a video, he was SOOO incredible. Okay, achievements: Friendly went good, but in the beginning he was distracted so that didn't really count; Porcupine HQ phase 1, FQ phase 2ish; Driving he totally aced, HQ phase .5 (lol), FQ phase 2ish; Yo-yo was incredible, I got him backing off Phase 1 simply because of my body language; Circling I didn't have time for; Sideways I skipped; Squeeze game wasn't the best. Also, another big thing (in my mind at least) is that Vittorion didn't need the carrot stick. His phase 4 was (usually) barely touching him. It was incredible. I mean, when I got home, I was giggling, I was so happy!

But I was trying to think if I could see myself riding that horse (after we'd prepared properly, of course), and the answer I've come to is I really don't know. I think I'll go see him again

and have the lady ride him first. Then, we'll see how I feel about it.

See, what I'm really unhappy about is that Vittorion's temperament is a 6.

I don't think I want a horse that spirited, (though it's certainly something I'll eventually need to be able to handle) yet I have no interest in buying a peanut-pusher either. Oohhh, but Vittorion was so amazing! Ahh, I hate decisions. Lol.

Lastly, I have to mention that the barn Vittorion was stalled

in (omg) was ALL studs. So, as I'm walking back to the barn all the studs nicker to Vittorion and about half of them get aggressive. Interesting. Anyways, we got a GORGEOUS picture of a Friesian stud.

"Quick, shut the gate!!"

Luckily, not!! I just felt like naming this post after one of Pat's trailer loading don'ts. My neighbors borrowed a trailer for the week and so decided to try loading their horses. So, Ruby, Charlie, and Sheba had an interesting day today. By the way, I've never talked about Sheba before, because I don't play with her much. She's a bay 25 year old LBI Quarter Horse who hasn't been in a trailer in 8 years. Well, Ruby had never seen a trailer before. My friend Miranda had Ruby, I had Sheba and Miranda's mom Bev had Charlie. Charlie was the most willing to load, so we loaded him up first. Ruby got hyped up! She wasn't even near the trailer, and she started doing a passage. I'll admit, she looked amazing (her tail was up the highest I've ever seen it, too), but I felt bad for Miranda. She was trying to restrain her and Ruby got away. But she ran right to Sheba, so no big deal.

Well, when Ruby went in the trailer, Bev tried bribing her. Ruby went in part way for the food, yet she was extremely unconfident. Talk about RBE!! And due to contrast in methods (Bev and Miranda are anti-Parelli), I'm no longer allowed to use Phase 4 with their horses. So, all I can do is stand by and watch. Anyways, we got Ruby to go in halfway, but she won't move her hind feet yet. She's thought about it, though. So, that's great for Ruby's first time!

I also tried loading Sheba in. She was sweating up a storm! The most I got her to go in was about halfway. Sheba was really unconfident, too. She kept trying to hide behind the side of the trailer. Also, she kept pulling back on the rope. But boy was Sheba thinking! I think she dug a hole halfway to China. So, it was quite easy to pick up Sheba's thinking pattern: pawing. Well, she tried a lot one time, so I decided that that was a good note to quit on. I took her away and she wouldn't eat any grass. I think she was too RBE to care, if that's possible. I'm happy with how I handled her RBEness. She wanted to walk fast, so instead of holding her back, I had her hindquarters in a few circles, and then forehand and then had her squeeze between a post and she calmed down. It was difficult on such a short rope, but I managed! :)

Expect a lot, Accept a little, Reward the slightest try

I have great news about Dancer's catching problems!! I was halfway across the pasture from Dancer today, with her halter in hand and Dancer trotted to me!! It was an amazing moment, because she looked so cute! Her ears were perked forward and she really looked happy to see me. It really made me think I'm on the right track with her, and that's such a relief!

Also, I was thinking about Dancer. She has proved to be a challenging little pony, lol. But I was thinking about how she has so much to teach me, because she's the kind of teacher who is looking for perfection from the beginning. Hence the title, because it seems like that's what she does!

Also, I'm happy about our progress together. I can see that I've still got a ways to go with her, but it's already come so far from what it was in the beginning when I was clueless. I still haven't got her respect 100% yet. I think it's going to take a LONG time for that (not that I'm not going to take that time, of course I am!!), but I know I've at least gained a few brownie points since then. Currently, Dancer respects me enough to keep her ears up when I'm with her, and watch my personal space, so that's definitely progress. If I had to guess, I'd say she respects me at near 65-70%.

I thought it was really inspiring when Heidi came to play with Dancer some months ago. What Heidi established with Dancer in a matter of minutes is something that I wish to be able to do. Plus, Heidi had Dancer's full respect! Basically, that showed me what I wanted Dancer's relationship to be with me.

Lesson learned

Okay, so when I get up in the morning (and when I go to bed at night) I always listen to my radio. That's just how I am. Well, over the past few months my radio has been working less and less consistently. In the mornings and nights, it usually always works. But in the middle of the day, if I try to turn it on it won't work.

I've had this radio for about 4 years now, so I was just thinking it's old. Lately, it's been getting quite erratic and it's really annoying. I'll go in to clean my room and I want to listen to music. I can tell you that's very difficult if the thing is not going to turn on!!!

Well, I woke up this morning, and my mom happened to mention to my brother that the lights had to be on in order for the radio to work. I was astounded!! I had been thinking I was going to replace it now for about a month or two, and suddenly it makes perfect sense. It works in the morning and night, because it's usually dark and so we turn the lights on. So, my mom had just caught onto the pattern that I had completely missed!! And sure enough, I checked the wiring and the radio is plugged into the circuit that turns on with the lights. "How interesting!!"

But I guess I can relate this to horses in that we tend to see the behavior and not the reason behind it. For instance, most people who have a horse that rears will say "My horse rears. How can I make him stop?" instead of asking "Why does my horse rear?". Maybe that horse is in pain, maybe he's not confident, there's thousands of reasons! So, in order to fix the symptom, you have to get rid of the cause!

The Day I got my dream horse!!

Yeah, you would never believe it. Woke up this morning and bam, we get a phone call. Three horses were running around town and one of them was a Friesian!! And if no one claims her she's mine!! Yes!!!

Oh, how sweet dreams are! If only, if only. . .

The Actual Story:

Ok, well I was SUPER tired. I got back from Noah's Ark last night at about 11:30. Slept like a rock, no problems there. So, it's about 11am, and I'm still 'sleeping'. My mom gets this phone call, and I have no idea what it's about. I only caught " A Friesian!!" and "I'll be right there!" So, I get up and my mom tells me that there's 3 horses loose about around the block and one's a Friesian. Oh, boy were we excited!! I grab some halters and lead ropes and my mom, Jake (my little brother), and I pile into the car.

So, we stop at this house and see 3 strange horses inside the pasture. I was wondering how in the world they got in there, but whatever. Then, Jeanie (the lady who called us about the horses) arrives. She tells me that she let the horses inside, because she didn't want them wandering the streets. I take a closer look at the horses. One is definitely a Friesian, she was gorgeous!

[caption id="attachment_104" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The Friesian being cute"][/caption]

One was a gray Arabian cross, and another looked like part Thoroughbred. The Arab and Friesian had halters on, so we thought that they must've belonged to someone. The Friesian's feet were really bad though, so I was thinking maybe we would end up keeping her! We put different halters on them, and then started leading them towards our house (we had an extra pasture we could put them in). I took the Friesian, mom took the Thoroughbred, and Jeanie took the Arab. We were already discussing who was going to take the Friesian, lol!

Well, we had just turned onto my road when a car drives by and then stops. Two people get out, and they tell us that these are their neighbors horses. So, we start walking them back the way we had just taken them. Some other boys come up and start leading the horses back to their homes. We drove home to get a quick drink and then headed to the horses' home.

[caption id="attachment_105" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Lippy!"][/caption]

The Arab was walking really fast, so it got home first and started freaking out, since her buddies weren't there. She actually kicked my mom, but SO LUCKILY the kick hit her phone instead of her. Well, her buddies arrived momentarily and she obviously calmed down.

The owners were away on vacation and they came home about 10 minutes later. I got a lot of information and learned more about the horses. For one thing, we were wrong! The Thoroughbred was actually a rare breed called Ahkal-teke. I forget her name, though. And the Arab cross was actually a purebred Lipizzaner named Lippy (unfortunately fitting, lol). Basically, we had just walked about $50,000 dollars down the street. Wow, was that one a shocker!!

And also, I found a nice exercise to do with Arruba that the lady who owned them suggested. I don't really feel like explaining, but basically it's supposed to help with the circling game. Lastly, I got another shocker that this lady was part owner of Ots Sunrise Farms.

Oh, and here's 2 more pictures. :)

[caption id="attachment_106" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Here's the Akhal-teke! I can't remember her name, argh!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_107" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Indiana eating. My is she drafty!"][/caption]