Apollo gets a brother!
I am officially the owner of 2 horses!
Leo, race name Crime Wave, is a 7 year old, 16h, dark bay thoroughbred gelding. He won about $35,000 at the track, and was retired in Dec 2008. His owners put him in training with a local event rider, Carrie Butler, and she took him from the track to Novice in less than a year. While his dressage scores leave something to be desired, he has always gone clean cross country and show jumping. His last horse trial was fall of 2009 - he's been in semi-retirement this year because his owners no longer wanted to invest the money in his training. So he's spent most of the year sitting around - lucky guy!
When I first spoke with Carrie, Leo didn't sound all that promising. She said he was "very forward", could be tense and needed a lot of flatwork, and she mentioned he wasn't in training anymore. Hmmm. But he was listed at $5k - there were no other horses on the market that had novice experience at that price range. I figured, what the heck - might as well go look at him. Turns out I really liked him.
He's got nice gaits and is very well-balanced. I can't quite explain it, but he was fun to ride. It was a nice balance of "this horse needs a lot of training" with "I know a lot of things to help bring him along." After the ride, I wanted to ride him again and was already planning in my mind how to bring him along. There were a couple of things I was unsure of - he was ridden in a standing martingale and had a tendency to carry his head really high in front of the fence. I didn't know if this was a training issue or a pain issue. I also didn't know exactly what Carrie's definition of forward was. Was he uncontrollable? Could you never put your leg on? It was hard to tell the first time because it was literally 103 degrees outside and we were riding in the hot sun. I think any horse would be less forward in those conditions. Carrie offered to take me cross-country schooling on him the next week, but that I was a little outside my comfort zone.
Two weeks later I brought Jane Cory with me for the second look. Wow - was that smart! Jane knew exactly what to do to test how forward he was. I just followed her directions. He was more tense on this flat the second time - plus, Carrie did not ride him before me this time. Jane has known all my horses (all 2 of them) and both Milo and Apollo are pushing horses. She recognized immediately that Leo would be a totally different ride for me. He's a horse with a lot of self-initiated "go." She explained that even though he was forward, I still needed to put my leg on to establish a rhythm. She said not to worry at all about his head position and just focus on forward and rhythmical. Gradually, Leo started to take contact with the bit on his own.
We trotted a vertical with a trot pole before and after the fence on one long side. Then they raised it to probably 2'6" or 2'9" and I trotted that a couple of times. Jane had me canter away from the jump and around the ring. Then Jane put up a vertical across the diagonal and after trotting the first fence and I continued cantering around the corner and over the fence on the diagonal. I tried to ride Leo as though he was as adjustable as Apollo - which he wasn't - and Jane explained that with a forward horse I needed to balance him about 5-6 strides out and then let him figure out the fence. If he wanted to jump a little long, that I needed to sit quietly and go with it. We tried it a couple more times and I let him jump out of a slightly longer spot and that was better. After that Jane added a third vertical to the opposite long side, so that I could canter a small S-shaped course. I trotted the first fence, landed in canter and cantered the last 2 fences. The third fence had a long approach, which Jane explained would let us see what Leo did when he saw a fence and had a lot of time to canter down to it. He definitely builds to his fences! His stride feels as though he gets longer to the fence, but it never felt crazy. After that, we cantered the course again without the martingale. He raised his head, and with the freedom listened a little less, but was still controllable.
We stopped with that. Jane thought he was a nice prospect but his adjustability would improve over time with more training. She liked how he landed from his fences in balance - not in a big heap on the other side of the fence and she liked that he didn't show the whites of his eyes and cow-hop down to the fence. She said his mouth was very sensitive and she recommended starting with a racing dee rubber mouth snaffle. She recommended that if I liked him enough to make an offer to low-ball it and negotiate for a better price.
So I did it! He was vetted out last week and I brought him home this week. He's been getting turned out with Apollo and they both seem to like each other. They are similar personalities - Apollo is more outgoing and lovable, but they are both chill and easy-going.
Leo was extremely tense on my first ride at home. He was trying hard to "go to work" but he just needs to realize that riding can be relaxing :) Sometimes I wonder if he holds his breath! I think with time and consistent training more of the chill-barn personality will come out under saddle. I'm excited to learn how to ride a horse like this! Under-saddle he is completely different than Apollo.
Speaking of Apollo, he has been awesome this summer. I love, love, love riding him. Every time I get on and start working, I can't help but think "wow, this horse is awesome." We've been working on our down-transitions (especially the halt), leg-yields (he's really doing nicely here) and trot lengthenings. I struggle here - this is new territory for me, but Becca rode him last weekend when I was away and when I came back I was able to get what felt like a nice medium trot - which was pretty exciting! Part of me seriously doesn't want to sell him and instead train him for dressage (with a couple jumper shows thrown in for good measure).
Leo, race name Crime Wave, is a 7 year old, 16h, dark bay thoroughbred gelding. He won about $35,000 at the track, and was retired in Dec 2008. His owners put him in training with a local event rider, Carrie Butler, and she took him from the track to Novice in less than a year. While his dressage scores leave something to be desired, he has always gone clean cross country and show jumping. His last horse trial was fall of 2009 - he's been in semi-retirement this year because his owners no longer wanted to invest the money in his training. So he's spent most of the year sitting around - lucky guy!
When I first spoke with Carrie, Leo didn't sound all that promising. She said he was "very forward", could be tense and needed a lot of flatwork, and she mentioned he wasn't in training anymore. Hmmm. But he was listed at $5k - there were no other horses on the market that had novice experience at that price range. I figured, what the heck - might as well go look at him. Turns out I really liked him.
He's got nice gaits and is very well-balanced. I can't quite explain it, but he was fun to ride. It was a nice balance of "this horse needs a lot of training" with "I know a lot of things to help bring him along." After the ride, I wanted to ride him again and was already planning in my mind how to bring him along. There were a couple of things I was unsure of - he was ridden in a standing martingale and had a tendency to carry his head really high in front of the fence. I didn't know if this was a training issue or a pain issue. I also didn't know exactly what Carrie's definition of forward was. Was he uncontrollable? Could you never put your leg on? It was hard to tell the first time because it was literally 103 degrees outside and we were riding in the hot sun. I think any horse would be less forward in those conditions. Carrie offered to take me cross-country schooling on him the next week, but that I was a little outside my comfort zone.
Two weeks later I brought Jane Cory with me for the second look. Wow - was that smart! Jane knew exactly what to do to test how forward he was. I just followed her directions. He was more tense on this flat the second time - plus, Carrie did not ride him before me this time. Jane has known all my horses (all 2 of them) and both Milo and Apollo are pushing horses. She recognized immediately that Leo would be a totally different ride for me. He's a horse with a lot of self-initiated "go." She explained that even though he was forward, I still needed to put my leg on to establish a rhythm. She said not to worry at all about his head position and just focus on forward and rhythmical. Gradually, Leo started to take contact with the bit on his own.
We trotted a vertical with a trot pole before and after the fence on one long side. Then they raised it to probably 2'6" or 2'9" and I trotted that a couple of times. Jane had me canter away from the jump and around the ring. Then Jane put up a vertical across the diagonal and after trotting the first fence and I continued cantering around the corner and over the fence on the diagonal. I tried to ride Leo as though he was as adjustable as Apollo - which he wasn't - and Jane explained that with a forward horse I needed to balance him about 5-6 strides out and then let him figure out the fence. If he wanted to jump a little long, that I needed to sit quietly and go with it. We tried it a couple more times and I let him jump out of a slightly longer spot and that was better. After that Jane added a third vertical to the opposite long side, so that I could canter a small S-shaped course. I trotted the first fence, landed in canter and cantered the last 2 fences. The third fence had a long approach, which Jane explained would let us see what Leo did when he saw a fence and had a lot of time to canter down to it. He definitely builds to his fences! His stride feels as though he gets longer to the fence, but it never felt crazy. After that, we cantered the course again without the martingale. He raised his head, and with the freedom listened a little less, but was still controllable.
We stopped with that. Jane thought he was a nice prospect but his adjustability would improve over time with more training. She liked how he landed from his fences in balance - not in a big heap on the other side of the fence and she liked that he didn't show the whites of his eyes and cow-hop down to the fence. She said his mouth was very sensitive and she recommended starting with a racing dee rubber mouth snaffle. She recommended that if I liked him enough to make an offer to low-ball it and negotiate for a better price.
So I did it! He was vetted out last week and I brought him home this week. He's been getting turned out with Apollo and they both seem to like each other. They are similar personalities - Apollo is more outgoing and lovable, but they are both chill and easy-going.
Leo was extremely tense on my first ride at home. He was trying hard to "go to work" but he just needs to realize that riding can be relaxing :) Sometimes I wonder if he holds his breath! I think with time and consistent training more of the chill-barn personality will come out under saddle. I'm excited to learn how to ride a horse like this! Under-saddle he is completely different than Apollo.
Speaking of Apollo, he has been awesome this summer. I love, love, love riding him. Every time I get on and start working, I can't help but think "wow, this horse is awesome." We've been working on our down-transitions (especially the halt), leg-yields (he's really doing nicely here) and trot lengthenings. I struggle here - this is new territory for me, but Becca rode him last weekend when I was away and when I came back I was able to get what felt like a nice medium trot - which was pretty exciting! Part of me seriously doesn't want to sell him and instead train him for dressage (with a couple jumper shows thrown in for good measure).
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