With nothing much going on I was looking for things to write about cuz if I don't keep writing this blog will wither away and I want it to be here when I get back to some serious training with Nina.
I nearly forgot the 30 Day Challenge which I had decided to use as prompts for posting on an occasional basis.
I am only up to 6... Your most accomplished horse.
My first vote was for Scotty, who was so athletic and had such a good temperament and would do anything if asked. Then I started thinking about the first horse that I owned, SR. He was an appendix who looked like a small TB. He was the first horse that I backed - and got left in the dirt on the first turn. He was the first horse that I trained and without a trainer. I did spend a lot of time watching trainers at shows and at home, I listened, sometimes I asked questions, sometimes good advice was offered to me. Looking back at the things SR did in his life - it is a long list. Some we did well and some not too well, but we competed sometimes and did fairly well.
SR (Silent Run) was intended to run the 870, but he quit the minute he got his head in front and he wasn't fast enough for shorter races so he had an extremely brief career.
I got him at just 3 years old.
- We spent a couple of years doing poles and barrels.
- Switched to reining, which was much more laid back and fun back then and did this for years.
- Did some Western Pleasure - they were more forward back then with slow and fast gaits.
- Did some arena trail which I thought was fun and SR thought was boring.
- For years we worked back in the pens and chutes for the junior, 4-H and Little Britches rodeos.
- Did all of our training on the extensive ditch road system in Albuq - no arena.
- Also did many many many hours of trail riding, watching the wildlife. He was also perfectly safe walking down a busy road.
- My Sergeant, who was an asshole - no apologies here - got married
sitting on him and he was like a photographer's pony, putting up with
the crowd and picture posing and the jerk riding him who felt it
necessary to wear big western spurs to get married.
- I packed into the Jemez mountains with him for weekends, he played pack mule and was quiet and calm grazing on a long line all day.
- He did escape from his home one night with a friend and the two of them ate a large strawberry patch and ran through a neighborhood covered in sheets off of a clothesline prompting calls to the police about ghosts and monsters.
- A friend talked me into trying jumping with him and NOW I understand how good he was, jumping big jumps safely and without drama. I did not know back then what potential he had. I didn't know what I was doing, my friend moved away and this was short lived.
- He did have some frustrating issues, he was a bolter at the beginning and he would jig the minute we turned toward home. A very nice Arabian trainer gave me some good advice and he got over those problems.
I wish I knew then what I know now about nutrition. Just like every other horse I knew of, he ate alfalfa and sweet feed. He might have been a little easier to handle if he had been fed correctly.
I owned him for 11 years and although our training of each other was rough and tumble, he taught me a lot
I had to sell him when I moved to Colorado - the cost of keeping a horse was several times what it cost in New Mexico and I could not afford it. He went to a friend who had been trying to buy him for years and became a full time trail horse.
