Nice things to say

As most of you know, I have a very nice coming-six Anglo-Arab sired by Karahty and out of my good old TB eventing mare. He'd been started out well, and when I moved up to Colorado, I put him with someone to condition while I was in vet school classes. I won't rehash that whole thing, but suffice it to say, I was very, very unhappy over the physical, mental and athletic condition of the horse I got back. Dakota's manners definitely needed some work, he needed alot of consistent ringwork and had some problems to get over, like pulling back while tied and herd-boundness and things like that.

Karen Chaton rode him for me for awhile, and made a lot of really great progress, but when she left for XP last spring, I put Dakota with a So Cal trainer near Lancaster named Larry Jeffery. Larry works primarily with young horses and 'problem children', and boy, am I happy with the job he's done with Dakota. I don't have a chance to see him in person too often, but have gotten progress videos from Larry, plus have visited a few times to ride my horse. What is really evident is how well taken care of my horse is---he's relaxed, happy, eager to go to work, is groomed within an inch of his life (and you can tell the difference between a horse that's really groomed daily versus one that got hosed off an hour before you got there), and all of his problems are long gone. He does everything you ask of him as though it never would occur to him to do it any other way. And when you ask him to do something new, or something he hasn't quite got the hang of yet, you can see the wheels turning, concentrating on doing what Larry is asking him to do, working *with* his rider, and not thinking about how to get out of it, or thinking about throwing a fit or otherwise avoiding something new he has to learn. It's a real pleasure to watch the process. He'd solved the problems in a month or two of consistent work, but I've left him there since then so he could really turn him into a pushbutton horse (and also because I didn't have time to bring him home until next spring). Boy, that horse can do *everything* now. A trained horse, what a concept <vbg>.

Larry isn't a real polished, sophisticated trainer with a slick barn, he's just real quiet and easy-going, loves the horses and just keeps working with the horses until they do it right. No yelling or flailing around, no picking fights with the horses, just a real understanding of how they think and learn. I could just sit and watch him work all day long, it's such a pleasure to see a honest-to-god, old-time, this-is-the-real-thing horseman.

Anyway, I thought I would post this first of all because I think we need to shout just as loud when we see something right as when we see something wrong. But also just in case anyone in the western states needs someone like that for their horses. Most of the horses he works with are the runaways, the kickers, the I-don't-wanna-do-that-and-you-cant-make-me problem children that we all run across. I just can't say enough good things, enough that I was willing to send my horse 1000 miles away from where I live, and will send Dakota's baby sister to start as soon as she's old enough. Nope, Larry didn't ask me to write this and I'm not getting anything from it. I just think he's worth telling other people about, and you guys all know by now that my opinion can't be bought. Larry charges somewhere around $650-700 a month for full time board and training (which is about the going rate), most horses are ready to go home in 90 days and he's worth every last penny and then some. I sure see a lot of people fighting with their horses rather than having fun, and this seems better to me.:-)))

[Date Prev]	[Date Next]	[Thread Prev]	[Thread Next]
[Date Index]	[Thread Index]	[Author Index]	[Subject Index]