The family friend that I got Crest from has a Quarab mare named Luna. Luna is 8 years old this year, a bay mare, 15hh, and the most fascinating extreme LB horse I've ever dealt with, simply because she's CUNNING. She thinks...and then thinks some more. And then acts...very deliberately.
Her horsenality chart. The two RB dots apply when Either a) I get too firm too fast, or b) she gets pushed over a threshhold.
Anyway, I've put something like 150 hours (I think?) of training on Luna, with mixed results due to MY level of savvy. When I'm on my game, we get along great, and we have a great time. But Luna's a defiant sort, and we've certainly had our fair share of, erm...interesting sessions. There have been times where she's fully deserved the nickname I used above..."Lunatic".
So, Luna is up at our place for another tune-up for a couple weeks. We brought her up yesterday, which couldn't have been easier, she loaded within 2 minutes or something (She put fronts, then loaded full, came out, then went in and we left her in) and settled in with her old herd buddy, Crest (he's in LOVE, by the way) and things went well.
Tonight, I decided, being that she and Crest were sappily hanging all over eachother (Is that REALLY how I looked the first 3 months dating Warren? I'm SO SORRY...UGH!) that she was pretty well settled in, and could do a bit of a play session.
I pulled her out, much to Crest's dismay (He RAN the fence line whinnying, and we were less than 50 feet away the entire time!). We started with the 22' line right away, just seeing what she remembered, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the old nickname I gave her doesn't really fit anymore. She was not dominant at all, very compliant, played a very impressive set of L2 quality 7 games, and then decided that barrels were the most amusing thing in the world, and that knocking them over was the only way to go.
I hopped on and rode her around too, and she was VERY responsive, which is impressive, because with a rider, she has a tendency to become more LBI and "Make me!" and loves to buck into upward transitions. Tonight, that was not the case, and I was very pleased. I only walked and trotted, but her transitions were Phase 1/Phase 2 quality, and I was pleased with it.
Maybe this chunk of time can be devoted to refining her! YAY! She's great! So...Luna-tic? Nah! Horse that's grown up a lot in a year? Yeah! Will keep you posted as we keep going.
Luna in winter 2006.
1 comment:
do you want to go to the university of florida with me? : ) it's 30 minutes from reddick, fl if you know what I mean. We could take courses at the study center over our breaks. pretty good idea if i do say so myself. teheh. love ya!
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