Re: Type A horses/good or bad?

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/14/00 10:41:34 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
tinka@reno.quik.com writes:

<< I have to say that I as a rider always choose horses with Type A
 personalities.  >>

The personality is one thing--the carrying it to the point of "coupling" it 
with high pulses at check-in and around camp just due to the hubbub is 
something else.  I'd have to say that all my horses have very "get-up-and-go" 
personalities--once you get on them!  But they don't give themselves 
adrenaline jolts to "up" their heart rates over what happens in travel or 
camp ("don't sweat the small stuff") and they tend to the business of eating 
or sleeping when not called upon to do something.  They don't dig holes, 
fret, etc., and even when confronted by mares in season (we mostly ride 
stallions), etc., in check-in lines, they check in at 36, give or take...  I 
had to laugh over my old stallion "Junior" a few years ago--granted, by this 
time he was a "campaigner" and had been regional mileage champ the year 
before (his front-runner days were when both of us were younger <sigh>), but 
nonetheless, he had not been out the following season, and I brought him over 
to a ride site on Saturday morning as a substitute horse for a young rider 
whose horse had not passed the vet-in.  Despite the hubbub of camp (the 75's 
leaving, and a 50-mile horse bucking his rider off and cannonading through 
camp right after), Junior was still at 36 on his HRM after the youngster got 
on and was walking him around camp to get acquainted.  Now, granted, Junior 
is not the most "competitive" horse out there.  But my husband's stallion is 
very much the same way until you get on--half asleep at the trailer, no 
problem crawling around under him to clean feet, etc.--but becomes a fire 
breathing dragon once your foot hits the stirrup.  THAT is what I want in an 
endurance horse--one who is not so Type A that he runs his race tied to the 
trailer, but one who has plenty of get-up-and-go when it counts.  Maybe 
that's a Type A-minus?  The other sort of horse simply presents that much 
more challenge to keep him together metabolically.

Heidi