Today's musings

Grey Horse Matters has an interesting post today about the different personalities our horses have, and how important it is to adapt to their behaviour and thus get the best out of the partnership.

That made me think of something I have been musing about for a while.

When I think back on the horses that have meant most to me - they are very much alike.

How come?

Is it because I perfer one type of horse, or is it because they are affected by me?

My favourite ones have been sensible but sensitive. Brave but also spooky. Energetic. Intelligent.
Oh, what wonderful animals they are. Or were.

And I subconsiously mixed them, and used the wrong name sometimes. At least with my two favourite geldings. With Fame it is a bit different as she is another gender, but in personality she is very much the same.

My favourites have all been brown with white markings, so when I see a brown horse with white markings, my heart beats a little faster. You can have your greys and blacks – to me a brown horse with white markings is the most beautiful horse in the world!

I know of many horse owners that when they are to buy a new horse, they look for one that hasn't got the weaknesses of the previous one.

And sometimes they take the good qualities of the previous one for granted, and forget to check that out in the potential new one...

How about your horse(s)?

What type do you prefer?

Has it to do with what previous type of horse you have had?

How do you think you affect yours?

It was a wonderful winter day today.

For the first time, you could feel some warmth in the sun.

I removed the rugs on both horses, and stood for quite a while enjoyoing the sun while scratching Fame's butt.

We felt gooood both of us.

A little bit to the left, please!

The character of a horse, part two

I would like to continue this discussion guys, thanks for participating!

Today’s question:

Do we have different character traits depending on what horse rase we are looking at?

Compare a thoroughbred with a pony.

Are there differences?

How much comes from handling, and how much comes from the breed?

Some pony breeds (Shetland, New Forest and the Swedish Gotlandruss being three examples) have roamed about in the wild, and have had to mend for themselves up to rather recently.

They are often both very food motivated and easily kept, as scarcity of food has been a strong selector in survival.

They are smart - as in testing things out.

If you have an escape artist in the yard, who would that be?

The smart and the sturdy ones survived. The others did not.

Ponies can be challenging to handle.

In my experience, they often test people out, and are very good at it too.

Let me give you two bright examples:

This is Maigutten.

He is one of the riding school horses at the stable.

I suspect his owner gave him to the riding school because she found him difficult to handle.
What breed he is I do not know, but that there is some native pony of some sort in the mix I do not doubt when looking at him.

Now, Maigutten won’t take a “No” for a No unless he has tested it out.

Guess who's got an extra chain on the door to his box/stall?

In spite of this, Maigutten often escapes.

He is a good dressage pony, and a very good jumper. With an experienced rider.

And for the rest?....He reads the rider in exactly 15 sec, and then either refuses to go, or starts doing funny exercises.

The entrance to the arena has to be closed to keep him in.

Is he a butthead?
Yes, definitely. But a smart and talented butthead.

My other example is the Shetlands pony May-Lis, now diseased, but used for pony riding in the riding school 15 years ago.

If the parents that were leading the child were used to horses, she was good as gold.

If the parents were not used to horses (quick assertion) she snapped at them, which made the parent let go of the rein.

Then she ran over to the nearest turf of grass, and turned her butt to the approaching parent and kicked loose at them when they came close enough.

Terrified child screaming, of course.

These are two horror examples, but I am sure that you guys can find similar (but perhaps less extreme) examples, at least of riding school horses that are used to quickly assess people and adjust their behavior accordingly.

My daughter's first pony was a cross Shetlandspony-Gotlandsruss, Felix.

I could tell you some stories about him too.

But he behaved *most* of the time, and was much loved.

All horses differ between people, but I do believe ponies make more out of it than other breeds.

Some people blame it on the fact that they are mostly handled by children.

Perhaps.

To a degree.

But is that the only explanation?

Another example: The Norwegian Fjord.

I would say that what we have here is a Pony In Disguise.

I am sure that anyone that has had anything to do with a Fjord will agree with me when I say that they are wilful, sturdy, food loving and smart. I have never seen a skinny Fjord.

And they walk all over you if you let them.

Again, tough conditions and survival of the fittest.

But they are normally not handled by children, so I'd say we are speaking genetics here.

In my opinion you will find more "personalities" with native breeds than you will find in Warmbloods (or thoroughbreds) where many of the survival instincts are bred away.

But they might have other issues.

Our neighbour who runs the yard is a racehorse trainer, so we have thoroughbreds in the stable too.

My husband has had many of them up through the years as he litterally was bred into the sport. Below you see Fair Flair.

Have you seen the panic button on a Thoroughbred?

I hope you haven't, because it is not funny.

They just lock out the world and RUN.

A couple of years ago one of them (not one of ours, TG) got scared and galloped full speed (with rider) along a road for 9 km (5.6 miles), and litterally run its hoof off. Box rest for half a year. Unfortunately never recovered after that either.

The young rider got out of it unharmed, but that was only luck.

I have never seen that happen with a pony.

So what do you think?
Does breed count?
Can we say that a breed has certain traits?
And if so, in what way?


(and thanks to my daughter for the first and last picture)

The character of a horse

Is the character of a horse set in stone?

Is a nice horse always nice?

Please bear with me and read a rather long ingression to my thoughts.

There is a good discussion going on over at Mugwump Chronicles.
The first post is about what kind of sensitivity you need in a horse depending on what work he is to do.
That post made me want to share some thoughts over things I have been pondering over lately.

This is my daughters pony MacGyver, aka Charlie, aka Prince Charming.

He is such a sweet horse, and we really love him.

When you ride him he is always happy to cooperate, he works for light aids and tries to understand what you want.

If you really look hard for problems he is a bit ticklish when you brush his belly, and he can throw off the odd happy buck when out on trail, but that’s it.

Or at least, that’s what we thought – until now.

Prince Charming has been misbehaving.

We have had a very sweet girl at the same age as my daughter, C, that has been riding him twice a week for over a year.

C rode him well and everything was fine up to beginning of December when she wanted to stop riding him as Charlie had been misbehaving.

Charlie had been acting up when C was out on trail with two other riders from the stable.

C also said that Charlie had bucked with her in the arena a couple of times.

We understood nothing of this as he at the same period of time had been his normal angelic self with my daughter and me.

We were sad though as we liked C, but concluded that the level of what is scary can differ from person to person.

In December Charlie had time off due to a shoeing problem.

Around Christmas we started to ride him again.

And again, even after having time off, he was his normal cheery self and no misbehaving.

Until the new girl, M, was to ride him last week.

She tried him the week before without any problems, but comes Thursday and she was to have her first dressage lesson.

I was riding Fame at the same time, when our Prince Charming suddenly starts a rodeo show.

I could feel my chin fall down to my knees…what on earth was going on???!

M manages to stay on, and continues to ride.

Just to have another act of entertainment a few minutes after.

Still in a state of shock of my Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde-pony, I ask M to change horse with me.

Our ill-mannered pony was opportunistic enough to try the same on me and gets an unpleasant surprise.

He tries once again, with the same result.

After that he is behaving himself again, and M sits up and rides the rest of the lesson without any problems.

He has apart from this incident never misbehaved with my daughter or me, or any adult persons riding him, so I rule out any health problems.
On the contrary, he is happy to work.

So I guess he was just looking for some extra entertainment.

Exit Prince Charming, hello Mr. Bad Guy.

Now to summarize this rather long story, I am coming back to the questions on top.

Is a horse’s character set in stone?

Is a nice horse always nice?

In the example above we have a horse where the setting around him is the same, and still he acts totally different depending on the rider.

If you in addition change environment, how you manage the horse and how you feed him, the horse might behave quite different.

So I would definitely say that a horse's character is not set in stone; it may differ quite a lot.

Here you have the difficulty in selling and buying horses.

Assessing the horse’s temperament is perhaps the most difficult task when you are out to buy.
You get a “feel”, and personally I always try to test by pushing the horse a bit, and see how he reacts.

But still it's a qualified guess, at its best.

From time to time I assist people in buying horses.

I love the match-making feeling, of trying to get a good horse-rider combination, and it makes me happy when things work out.
But I always try to have a discussion about the "adjusting period".
The horse is no car, it takes time to learn to know and ride a new horse.
In my opinion you need between 6 mths to a year to learn to learn to know your new partner.

Don't expect it to be perfect from the start, because it won't.

Or perhaps it's very good to begin with as the horse is still working on the previous, more experienced, owner's routines and riding, and then there is a performance drop after a while when the horse adjusts to the new, less experienced owner.

And so much is about management, and routines.

No turnout=bad horse.

Much feed, little exercise=bad horse

No rules=bad horse

I have been pondering a lot about my antelope problems before Christmas.

As it is difficult to get any answers from Fame I think I am concluding that less trail riding and no playing around when turned out (due to uneven, frozen ground) at least play a part in the equation.

Again, a change in managment (due to weather) that affects the behaviour of the horse.

Comments anyone?