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Thursday, September 20, 2007

My Lastest and Greatest Picture of Willow Breeze

This is my latest mare to my small herd, Willow Breeze. She is a French Canadian Horse with a few special qualities. She has been trained for western riding, apparently has no toe commands but she does one-handed neck reining to an acceptable degree for trail riding at the very least, however I suspect she is better than she showed me. She is high spirited when under saddle and is not fond of being used. She is extremely intelligent though and is interested in learning different activities that she has never come across before.

I rode her yesterday and will do so again today. I found her to be far too energetic for a novice rider as she wants her own way constantly. In this respect, I found that her western training does not come through. She spent a lot of the time on two legs, trying to move out, instead of resting quietly in one spot. Now she wasn't vicious or mean, but I wanted her to stand at rest and she wanted to move out, so I kept bringing her to a halt. The problem could have been because I was using Coppers hack-a-more, which I don't believe she understood and also she is in heat, so she wanted to spend all her time with Dream. Her head is even smaller than Coppers because I needed to readjust the head stall for her by about two inches.

Today I intend to longe (lunge) her with the saddle on and side reins. See if that helps improve her. She is a good animal to sit on, comfortable to ride and sweet-natured, even if she is stubborn. She saddles and bridles well, even though she put her ears in the flat-back position when I cinched her. Gentle talking and the occasional patting of her neck, got her through the ordeal without incident.

Over all, I’m pleased with little Willow, I think she will make an exceptional ride once the kinks have been worked out. When she comes to the realization that I'm not going to use her hard, as what has been tried in her past, I think she will be very pleasurable.

I have the feeling that she would make a good equestrian mount in the English forum. Her natural inquisitiveness leads me to believe that there is not much that she wouldn't like to learn. She likes to bow her neck and have her muzzle near her chest when being ridden, which is quite not like western trained horses, but I'm certain she has had no English training. There again, it might have been her reaction to the hack-a-more.

3 comments:

Head Cookie said...

Oh Gimme your right my niece is beautiful. What a great pic. I think she will be great when she gets used to her training that you are giving her.

Jayne :) said...

Beautiful head - very refined as you said. OK - so maybe I see some Arab there - LOL
What a pretty mare! Sounds like you have quite a task on your hands but it's always so worthwhile I think :)

Good luck!

Magdalen Islands said...

There is something distinctly Arabish about this mare - not in her looks, which is 'petite', as in her eye and her need-to-know attitude.