{"id":681,"date":"2002-04-30T20:48:15","date_gmt":"2002-05-01T01:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/?p=681"},"modified":"2010-09-30T20:49:53","modified_gmt":"2010-10-01T01:49:53","slug":"jrs-journal-we-start-the-dreaded-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/jrs-journal-we-start-the-dreaded-pace\/","title":{"rendered":"JR’s Journal – We Start the Dreaded Pace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

JR is now a few months into his 3rd<\/sup> year and he stands at 15.2 Hands. His legs are almost taller than I am! I can\u2019t see over him from the ground unless I\u2019m looking at jet airplanes. Just recently I noticed that the mounting blocks were getting too low!<\/span><\/p>\n

Jenny finished starting him and I started riding him in the Monday night group lessons. I was getting more and more relaxed riding. One weekend, I asked him for a little speed and he started pacing like he was a Standard Bred racehorse! I was completely shocked and horrified.<\/span><\/p>\n

I went through the phases of grief:<\/span><\/p>\n

First was denial.<\/strong> Surely I am living in a bad dream. Surely he will magically change back to the hard-wired fox trotter. Well, my bad dream continued and JR kept pacing.<\/span><\/p>\n

My next stage was anger.<\/strong> Why is this happening to ME! I don\u2019t deserve this. I already suffered with a pacing horse. I have suffered more than anyone else on earth with a pacing horse. Surely God wouldn\u2019t punish me a 2nd<\/sup> time. This is Way Unfair<\/strong>!<\/span><\/p>\n

My petitions went unanswered.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pathetic grieving was the next step.<\/strong> Could I have caused JR to pace? Don\u2019t even think about that. Of course not. I\u2019m not having a good time riding him in the lessons. I can\u2019t go above a quarter horse walk and here are all the other horses whizzing all over the place. I\u2019m the most pathetic student in the group!<\/span><\/p>\n

I was in denial for about 3 months. I\u2019ve heard all the stories about the greatest natural fox trotters in the world pace after a few minutes of being ridden by a novice. Surely this can\u2019t be me! Finally, I have come to decide that perhaps it is my fault that he paced. I think my tense muscles and bracing when he went faster than a quarter horse walk might have driven him into the pace. Perhaps it\u2019s his tall gangly legs? After all a 15.2H three-year-old horse has a lot of leg to figure out where they go.<\/span><\/p>\n

I forgot to mention that along with loosing the fox trot, he lost his wonderful canter. I can hardly get him to canter and for the few steps of canter that we do get, every foot is doing something different. How can this happen to my Reining Horse prospect?!<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m done with grief, despair and blame and moved into fixing.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JR is now a few months into his 3rd year and he stands at 15.2 Hands. His legs are almost taller than I am! I can\u2019t see over him from the ground unless I\u2019m looking at jet airplanes. Just recently I noticed that the mounting blocks were getting too low! Jenny finished starting him and I started riding him in the Monday night group lessons. I was getting more and more relaxed riding. One weekend, I asked him for a little speed and he started pacing like he was a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":684,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions\/684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}