Saturday, March 14, 2009

Giraffe Horse

I do like stallions. Well, scratch that. I like GOOD stallions. Ones with manners and sweet personalities, who want to work and want to be a teammate. I like their strength and their stamina and their boyishness and how when they are trained well you can ride them quite aggressively and they just "get" it, get in and get done.

It might be too early to tell if Giraffe Horse will be this way, since I haven't rode him yet, but so far I think he might be. Despite his horrendous front legs and feet I find myself liking him. He wants to work. Once we got past the posturing and spoiled asshole behavior and established the boundaries, things became fun and he gets a little better every time I get him out. And he is always waiting for me to get him out. He waits politely and asks with his eyes if he is next. When he sees that he is, he comes to his door and sticks his head in the halter. He lets me lead him easily now and knows I expect him to be quiet and mannerly. He goes to the round pen and goes to work and there isn't any of the head jousting or malicious looks I used to get from that awful stallion, Skeeter, or any of the other bad stallions I have met. Those ones are always testing and always letting you know with their jeers and sneers how they feel about what you are asking them to do, even if they do it, grudgingly. It's always a little argument with them, like a sullen teenager, who isn't quite bad but isn't good and is certainly unpleasant to be around! No, Giraffe Horse is definitely not like that!

Perhaps he needs a new name now. Originally, Giraffe Horse was fitting, as he is a light sorrel paint with small white markings on his neck. Well more of it had to do with how he was and not how he looked. His enormously long neck looked even longer when he was walking on his hind legs, head straight up in the air almost inside out. That is when he resembled a giraffe. Now he is beginning to look more like the Pleasure bred horse that he is, with a lower more relaxed head and cadenced rhythmic gaits performed at the end of the lunge with just a suggestion from me. He likes this work.

The cutters don't like this work so much. They patiently go through the circles in order to get to the working the cow part. It is a chore to be endured. For the pleasure bred ones, they live for the circles. I know that sounds funny but I believe it, and have felt it. Like a race horse lives for the thrill of the gallop, the pleasure horses seem to take pride in a well performed jog or lope. It gives me a glimpse of what Pleasure horse riders strive for, enough for me to appreciate their sport but not quite enough for me to enjoy it or want to try it myself. I will do my best to help Giraffe Horse get a good start in this sport however, so he can go on and become something.