Trust Replaces Fear

June 25, 2016Posted inCISCO, Country Frank's Lucky Star, Missouri Fox Trotter
It was quite a long time ago.  This might have been five or six years ago.  There was this horse, a fruit loop horse.  She is a sensitive horse and the wrong people bought her.  After six months, she was scared of anything human.  If anything human moved, she was scared of it. She is what Pat Parelli calls a "Hey Bob! Horse.  You are riding this horse.  You wave your arm to say hi to Bob and the horse bolts. Human arms to this horse are things that beat…

Cisco and the Two-Legged Jump

June 25, 2016Posted inCISCO, Missouri Fox Trotter
This is a task for the horse in the Level 4 Liberty Test: Jump Over an Obstacle with the Two Front Legs and then Sidepass Over the Obstacle Toward the Human.  ("Liberty" is the human on the ground with the horse loose...no halter or rope attaches to the horse.) This task is one that you have to sign your name and attest that your horse did this.  It is not a task to video.  Sadly, one has to attest with their signature that this has been done.  I could lie....sigh.…

Phoenix and Let Me Ride Your Horse

June 17, 2016Posted inCountry Frank's Lucky Star, Miscellaneous, Velvet
I was like this!!  I rode other people's horses in my young adult formative years. Long long ago in the 70's, visiting in Walsenburg, Colorado, I paid a cowboy to ride his horse. This wasn't a rental horse situation.  This guy rode horses as part of his job, probably cows.  I got on his horse and rode out into the dessert, just me and the horse. I came back and rode around his property, because it was just a little boring out there in the dessert scrub. The cowboy seemed…

Life in the Herd

June 5, 2016Posted inCISCO, Country Frank's Lucky Star
Four Horse Herd is: Sweetie-Paint mare with nearly no pigment on her face to block sunburn. Sweetie has become best friends with Delta....... Sweetie is low horse in the herd in domination in the herd. Number 4, Sweetie does not let on that she likes or trusts humans until you walk up and pet her. Then she may or may not trust you. I believe she has been a brood mare all her life and has not experienced any close bonds with a human. She did not have any friends…

Enter the Horse of No Again

May 24, 2016Posted inCountry Frank's Lucky Star, Missouri Fox Trotter
Because I have such and wonderful horse of Yes in Cisco, it is difficult to work up much incentive to ride the Horse of No, Lucky Star.  Lucky might be near full recovery from his accidental leap over the fence and ripping up his foot in September 2015. I had incentive today. It was feet trimming day with Tony Vaught.   I took him to the arena in which I ride.  He and Cisco trailered over together.  Cisco was first out of the trailer.  I tied him up.  Lucky Star…

Flying Lead Change on Cisco? Miracles Happen

May 17, 2016Posted inCISCO, Missouri Fox Trotter
Here is a horse never cantered under saddle until I got him at nine years of age. Never cantered under saddle with a human weight from zero to nine. There is a lot of balancing that a horse needs to canter while carrying a human. I remember when Nichole first cantered him during his thirty day "customize him for Susan training". She was happy to discover a canter! And the canter was comfortable! I remember cantering on him during a group lesson at Mary Brown's arena. I was shocked by…