Riding Mr. Cisco?

I seem to have strange epiphany's while I am just on this side of sleep. I come up with the greatest ideas, think of all kinds of important things, and come to great conclusions at this time. I'm not the only one, right??

Anyway last night as I was laying in bed waiting to fall off to sleep I started thinking about horses. And my mind came back to a conversation I had with my mom a while ago. Something along the lines of "don't you want Cisco?? And you can give me Daisy!" I strongly protested to this idea, and it came up several times, all with my same reaction.

But last night it strangely started to make sense! And I kind of got excited! I need to flesh this out and think about it some more so I thought I would put down some pros and cons and would LOVE any and all opinions from anyone who reads this blog.

First lets do a 411 on Cisco for those who don't read my blog much.

Name: Dixies Cisco Kidd
Breed: Spotted Saddle Horse (out of a SSH sire and dam but solid, so not registerable)
Age: 12
Height: 16.2-3
Weight: ??
Discipline: Trail Riding

Trading Cisco for Daisy:

PROS:
1. He's younger
2. Gorgeous!! Tall and palomino with a beautiful tail
3. I've basically done all the training on him from when we got him at 4 months and up
4. No soundness issues
5. VERY easy keeper, with great hooves, in great health, grows a very strong winter coat
6. Been taken very good care of his whole life by my mom
7. He's a sweet boy, big baby, LOVES attention (unlike Daisy who would rather be left alone!)
8. No bucking! (I love that about most gaited horses, haha)
9. Smooth riding
10. He would be free!
11. Daisy gets to go to my mom who has a barn and babies her animals
12. My mom gets a smaller horse she can ride


CONS:
1. HE'S NOT A QUARTER HORSE - big main one
2. Pretty much has no formal training aside from 30 days at a trainers; woahs, gos and turns, thats it
3. TALL and CLUMSY, he has dinner plate size feeet and gets them tangled a bit
4. Not socialized much, he has been off farm and away from his mama only 3 times in his life. But the last time he was he did great. My teenage niece who is a very green rider took him to a horse camp for a week and he was such a good boy!
5. 'Hotter' then Daisy
6. All his tack has to be BIGGER. Although I'm sure mom would send his tack with him. It's just not that great of quality. I know, I'm a snob!
7. Never taught to carry a bit
8. If I wanted to sell him my mom would not be pleased
9. I have to trade Daisy :(
10. He is used to having a barn his whole life, all we have is trees!
11. He will be out with at least 2 other horses he doesn't know, not his mommy. At the trainers he went to for 30 days he got picked on pretty bad, so not sure how he would do. He would probably be ok with the geldings, but if I trade Daisy then Stormy will be alone...maybe she won't be mean to him??

So! Give me your thoughts! I have pretty much decided already, but would love to hear anything else. If I decide to get him it will definitely be after Christmas!

And to finish, some OLD pictures of Cisco boy! :)

About 6 months old!

Little guy at 10 months! 

Cisco and his mama! He is little over a year here. Dix looks so good!

Theres my QH mare I grew up with peeking out! He was such a lanky yearling!

First ride at 2 years!

And this is my niece at the horse camp with him, such a handsome boy!

So! I will let yall know how it all develops! Oh, BTW, that pleasure horse my FIL was looking at? Found out why he is so cheap. LAME. He has a shoulder injury. UGH, more deception! Dontcha think that would be nice to disclose in your for sale ad?? -_-

Till later!

Oh, The Deception!

Well now that I am on my computer I can give you a better picture of the gelding we went to see Saturday. Here he is:

Looks nice right?? He sure does in THIS picture. I didn't get a picture of him when we went to see him but this is an example picture of the kind of condition he was in when we drove up:

Of course this is obviously an older horse, but the prominent backbone and croup are all very similar to this gelding above, although I think his ribs were standing out MORE then this horses. Definitely around a 2 on the body conditioning scale. Their excuse? "He's a big horse, he takes a lot of feed!" and "He was like that when we got him" Sigh.

SAD. I knew when we drove up to a ranshackle barn and a rundown dressage arena with BARREL RACING barrels in it that was a bad sign. Not to mention the 2 horses walking around loose with lead ropes dangling. Near a road. Yeah. -_-

So I saw him in the pasture when we drove up and I thought oh no, I really hope that's not him. I looked closer at his markings and I knew it, I knew it was him. He has the same markings as Daisy so it wasn't hard to remember. My mother in law went OH NO, I hope not! I was like, well, maybe not, but I have a strong suspicion!

The lady that ran this 'lesson barn' was sick so she had her teenage students tacking up and talking to us. We walked out to the pasture to catch him and he wasn't happy about that, trotted around a bit before we got him. Then as the little girl was haltering him I asked her some about him, namely about him being out of Impressive blood and if he had been tested. She says, I don't know, but I do know he is a roarer. WHAT?! Your kidding right?? NO MENTION of this in his ad of course. That right there was kind of a deal breaker. But we had drove over an hour to get there and decided to try him out anyway.

So we get to the barn and they can't find any tack to fit him (most of their horses were under 15 hands and he is 16.2). She also can't find a saddle that my father in law can fit in. They finally find reins that are long enough and the girl takes him to the little dressage arena and puts him through his paces both ways. Oh wait, I forgot the part where she said he throws his head a bit so lets try him in a tie down. YEAH. So she puts one of those on him and my father in law are just looking at each other like, man what a waste of time.

Anyway he does fairly decent. Takes his leads well, etc. I notice she is posting his trot, but don't think much about it until later. And then we hear it about the second time around at the lope, HUFF HUFF HUFF with each stride. Yep, definitely a roarer.

She hops off and I tell her I don't want to ride him in the tie down and take it off so I can see how he does, then climb up on the behemoth. I flex him both ways, he does that fairly well. I make him woah a couple times and flex again. He pulls HARD on the bit a few times, can definitely tell he has had beginners yanking on him. Then I trot him. OH MY WORD. Now I know why she was posting his trot. I could. not. keep. my. hiney. in. the. saddle. Awful! And his lope wasn't much better. So I did lope him pretty good both directions and you could hear his roar even worse, poor guy. So! That was the end of that.

We were all pretty disappointed  so I got on my phone again to see if there was anything else down there worth looking at. Found a stable about 25 minutes east of us who had two geldings that sounded promising. But they didn't pan out either. At least they were saddled when we drove up! The father in law jumped on a sorrel and I took the palomino paint. Neither looked like much. They were about 15.1ish, but pretty lanky. Just 'horses', you know? They minded well though and were a nice ride. Definitely smoother then old Red Man. But still not what he was looking for!

As we were driving home I happened to get an email from a guy who had a pleasure gelding that the FIL relaly like, but had said he thought someone was coming to get him. He said in his email he still had him and to give him a call. Whoo hoo! We were pretty excited about that, so maybe he will work out. We'll see!

I used to think horse shopping was fun, but LAWD, I'm having second thoughts.

Got another post in the works! Might get it out today!

Small Update!

Yes, I'm still alive and well! Not much horsey things going on since the beginning of the year. I've pretty much retired Daisy girl. She is nearly 23 now and really would rather not have to do anything but eat!

Chloe and I went out and visited her this afternoon. She is looking good going into winter. I'll have to make sure I blanket her on the cold wet/snowy nights though, she isn't as hearty as she was. I wish she would grow more of a winter coat!

She of course didn't make it easy on me and be available up at the gate. No, I had to walk through 3 pastures to get her fuzzy butt! And of course I carried my 2 year old daughter through nearly all of them to and back because she was "huffing tired" lol! She is so funny.

I had a pocket full of corn so gave her some after I caught her, hopefully she will remember that!
So we finally made it to the house and got her brushed. I also got her nasty mane snarl all smooth and fixed, though it seemed like I pulled out half her mane in the process! Doesn't look like it though. I guess its like me when I take a shower I feel like I lose a half a head of hair down the drain sometimes!

I found Chloe a low bucket to stand on and she was a great helper. Then she found the cowboy magik and had to spray that all over Daisy (and my leg -_-). She even got Daisys nose which I'm sure she appreciated, lol.

I had so much fun sharing with her the parts of Daisy's body, what a hoof pick is for, don't walk behind a horse, etc. She loved feeding Daisy the rest of the little corn I had gotten. Daisy was so careful not to use her teeth too.
After that her papa came up and gave me a leg up and then lifted Chloe up. He gave us a little pony ride in the yard, fun fun! Chloe wasn't real sure about being so high, but with time I think she will be fine! Or maybe she just needs a pony! ;)

After Chloe decided she was done I tooled around on Daisy a bit longer. I was thrilled she still remembers her lateral flexing! She was such a good girl. I haven't rode her since March probaby.

And in other exciting news! The father in law has been on the hunt for a horse for a while. He's only found one worth looking at and didn't like him enough to buy. But! I found him a gelding about an hour from us we will probably check out tomorrow. I'm so excited, love horse shopping! He is a big scutter at 16.2, chestnut reg QH out of a great grandson of Obvious Conclusion. Does english, western, jumping (woot!) and trails. 11 years old. Pretty guy! I'm on my phone or I'd put his ad link up for you.

 I can't really put photos where I want them on my phone so the first two are obviously the horse for sale, Red Man. And Daisy and Chloe and I the next! (And a bonus cute one of Chloe in her 'stang from today , lol.

I will keep yall updated on the test ride!

Good Boy, Cisco!

Back again! With a great report as well! I'll admit when I went out to my parents Tuesday I wasn't really looking forward to the mess I was going to have to deal with. I know how herd bound he is to his mama and I had all kinds of ugly scenarios going through my head.

So on tuesdays the child stays with her grandma so I didn't need to worry about her. Although my mom had to deal with her cousin, my younger brothers son, who stays with her on Tuesdays. He's only 2 months younger then Chloe. So that kind of made it hard for her to apply what I was doing and to even watch sometimes.

Ideally I would have liked to work him in a rope halter but I wasn't too worried because he is pretty responsive and kind of overreactive in his regular halter, especially when being reprimanded. I really didn't have a plan when I went out but after I got there and started working with him it all just came to me and fell into place. Thank goodness! I mean I'm no expert, I basically read and research a bit and figure it out as I go along.

So I haltered him up and just worked him in his pasture for a while. We worked on staying at my shoulder, halting promptly at my cue, same sort of stuff as Saturday. He remembered it all well. Then I thought I might go a little Clinton Anderson on him, lol. I really like the respect that he gets from his horses and how they look to him for all their direction. Both things Cisco needed! He needed to learn his mom doesn't call the shots when a human has him, plus that he is safe with the handler even if he's not with his buddy.

So I started with backing up with a wiggle of the lead rope. That took a little bit for him to figure out but after he got it he was GREAT at it the rest of the two or so hours I worked with him. Then I did some desensitization with him. CA says after you sensitize you need to desensitized and vice versa. So I would stand to one side and slap the ground with the lead rhythmically until he showed me a sign of relaxation. I.e. lowered head, licking and chewing, big breath, floppy ears, cocked hoof. Then on the same side I would lob the lead rope up and across his back and then off in a rhythm again until he relaxed. I thought he might have a problem with this to begin with but he was just fine with it. About halfway through he was relaxing within the first two slaps or lobs. It became like his 'safe' time when he could be still and just chill.

The last thing I taught him was disengaging his hindquarters. I said in my previous post I wished I knew how to teach it. Well things were going so well I decided to give it a try and see what he did. He did well! Although he tangled himself up for a bit to begin with lol.

There was one big problem with it though. For whatever reason the way I was doing it he tried to snap at me as I was bending down and staring at his hip for it to move. NOT COOL. Of course I laid into him with the lead rope and made him back up really fast. But he still did it another two times later on. Shrug. I don't know what I was doing wrong but apparently there was something! It also made him nervous nearly everytime I asked for it so I didn't do it much. Maybe he just needed more work at it? Like I said no idea, I've only read about it and seen it done on tv.

Anyway! We worked as far from his mama as possible in the pasture with no problem and decided it was time to graduate outside. He did great! No escalation, listened well, ect. So my mom was down at my grandparents chatting and I worked my way down there. All the while alternating between my 'tools' I had installed to keep his attention on me. My mom was still skeptical, saying yeah wait until he gets in the barn! She had very little faith in my method even seeing how well he was doing. Well! I was definitely motivated to prove her wrong!

So over the course of another hour or so I worked us towards the barn. Mostly going towards it but sometimes coming back towards his mama. She neighed for him off and on but he never called back! Only once did he neigh when we were way over by he barn.

All through this there were cars coming in and out, people yelling at each other, the baby running around with a wagon, ect. He did great. Oh and an annoying chihuahua barking and running at him too lol. He's used to her though ;). She thinks she is a horse herder.

Well we finally got to the barn and this is where he did get a little higher but nothing bad at all and he calmed down easily. I had mom grab a handful of hay and wait for us in the barn. I walked him in there and after he stood still he got some hay. Stood a few minutes and then we walked out! Good Boy!

I walked him back to a flat spot in the pasture and then had mom take over the lead. I don't think she really grasped exactly what I was doing but she did ok. I'm going to definitely go out again and help her soon. Maybe tomorrow? Probably not though because sweet baby is sick :(. I'll be over there for Easter Sunday but doubt I will have time. We'll see!

After we put him in the pasture I told my mom that he did well and he didn't even have a fit about finally being back with his dear mommy! He just walked in there and got him a drink and totally ignored her! My mom agreed that he had done well and I had made her a believer. :)

So I don't have any pictures from then but here are some from Saturday! 

Tata!

The Buddy Sour Horse: Solutions?

Hello everyone! Hope you all are enjoying the lovely spring weather, I sure am!

I've got a question for you guys that I hope I can get some good advice from.

Last Saturday my mom had me come out and help her with Cisco (you can read more about him here Cisco). She is all fired up about the horses after our adventure at the horse fair last weekend and is wanting to get her horses going. We are tentatively planning on going to the trail ride they are having starting at the arena May 12th. I know Daisy will be great but I'm a little worried about Cisco.

Anyway, Cisco is basically a HUGE baby. He may be 12 years old but he is basically a 2 year old in training/mind. He was initially saddle broke by my teenage self 10 years ago and then a few years after that my mom sent him to a local trainer for a month. But other then that and a handful of rides around the property with his mama, he hasn't been messed with. And add into the factor his HUGENESS he can be kind of intimidating to my mom. (and me!) So on Saturday I started to give her some tools to help her work with him and get him being more respectful and a responsible member of the riding horse community! Now, don't get me wrong, he is a big sweet heart, he just doesn't have a whole lot of respect for personal space and if he wants to do something bad enough, he just does it. He really doesn't know much better. My mom is also a bit of a push over ;). Here is a picture so you can kind of get an idea how tall he is, my mom is around 5'7 and he dwarfs her! (this pic is from a few years ago)

So I brought my bitless bridle over and put the basics of lateral flexion on him for her, then let her try it. After that we saddled him up and I rode him first to get the basics down again but mounted. Which was a lot more difficult then it had been on the ground. Daisy far excelled him in learning this. (who knows though she may have done it all before in the 16 years before I had her!) So he plowed around the round pen with me for a while just bracing against the rein until finally he settled down and started listening. At one point he started spinning in a circle pretty fast trying to get away from the pressure. That wasn't too fun! Spoiled baby!

So after that I got off and my mom jumped up and did the same thing with him. We also worked on his woah. His go button is firmly installed (as it is in most gaited horses in my experience!) so we didn't need work on that. After we were done riding she told me she also has trouble with him going wherever he wants on the lead rope. So I did some work with him in the round pen with his halter on after we untacked him. It didn't take much to have him following meekly at my shoulder. I also got him backing up from me with a wiggle of the lead rope fairly easily. I'd love to do some more things like disengaging his hindquarters and such but I have no experience with this. I wish I knew someone who could come give me the basics of it without having to muddle through myself. I think the respect aspect of it would help him a lot.

Well by then I had to go check on Chloe who was sleeping in the house. After we came back out mom had him brushed down and wanted me to help her walk the horses up to the top pasture. I made a little paint map, its pretty high quality ;)

Lol, what can I say? Anyway mom started off with Dixie and I had Cisco. He was doing fine, walking a little fast but a slight tug and he'd slow down. Mom started having trouble with Dixie so said maybe you should walk her! So I took her and she definitely was power walking and I had to snap her lead quite a bit to get a response. Mom seemed to be doing ok and when we got over there I asked her if he had done better then usual and she said, maybe, lol. Hm, anyway we got them put in there and Cisco had a gay old time running his big lug of a self all over the pasture. Its funny to see a huge horse like that run around!

Fast forward to Monday. My mom said she was going to ride him Sunday after church. So I called yesterday to find out how it went. Well horrendous was probably the word. She had to take him from his mama at the top pasture back to the barn to ride and he did not like that. She said all he did was holler for her and be a total pain and basically do whatever he wanted to. Sigh. Spoiled brat! She said he kind of scared her, which was NOT what I wanted to hear, I wish I had been there to help her! I told her I would come over that afternoon to help her with him if she wanted but she had other things she had to do so we planned on this afternoon. I'll let you know how it goes!

Anybody have any tips on 'curing' the buddy sour horse? Thanks!