Posts by Susan

See yesterday’s post about Fancy’s thoughts on body domination.  If Fancy gets too close to me, it is not in her genes to back out of my space. At a nasty 23 degree New Year’s Day, I elected to veg out at home. Late afternoon I went to visit Fancy. It would be nice to feed her the pelleted alfalfa and clean her stall.  I used the horsemanship stick with the rope around her neck to lead her from the pasture through the sliding barn door in the 20’ trek…

Fancy is a Go horse.  She likes to go.  She likes to speed up.  Fancy is a wheels down freight train.  These are true statements unless she wants to argue. Day two of Question Box Pattern.  I decided to ride with her bridle on today.  I mounted and we practiced with the neck rope.  We turned circles around the question box obstacles.  I really don't like the neck rope.  It's too short. I have to put the neck rope up on her neck which makes me lean forward.  That isn't…

Al Dunning was giving a clinic and I was delighted to be an auditor.  He talked about the time it takes a trainer to get a horse ready for the show arena with enough skills to have a chance of winning.  He said, "It takes 100 hours to start a horse and ready to show."  A trainer usually rides five days a week for as long as twenty minutes to forty-five minutes with an average of thirty minutes.  Figure out how long a 100 hours takes...about a year.  Now the…

It was twenty six degrees again and the slight wind cut through my body like a knife.  I fed the home horses without wearing my four layer top and bottom.  The thought of riding Fancy was again, cold-painful. Heck, I'll reward her and feed her.  I drove over to Ms Fancy's stable.  I got her out of her paddock and put on her magnetic blanket.  I fed her in her stall.  I cleaned up her stall.  There were some suspicious brown piles in her stall. Oh heck, another crazy old…