Ridecamp: Re: [RC] Standardbreds

An Appy rider here has finished our national ride 10 years running on the same Appy.

My little story :
I came by an Anglo Arab late last year (emergency sale from owner who remembered my comment "I'm first in line if you ever want to sell him" and text messaged me one night 10pm).  Anyway, I had no idea what to do with this horse, but knew deep-down that he would make a good second endurance horse.  Didn't do too much with him as I was conditioning Ibn for the new season, so he had very few miles on him since coming to me.  Concentrated on manners and had the chiro have a look at him which stopped him from becoming a run-away and dangerous bucker (the reason for the sale in the first place).  But I wanted to see how he would handle a real ride so took him to a fairly difficult ride early February.  Everybody got whiplash when they saw him because he was a 16h dark bay, extremely pretty and HOT.  He handled everything very well, pulses and metabolics good, camped well so made up my mind that he would do the job.  Started riding him more and had another rider take him to his second LD in the beginning of March.  That ride really made me fall in love with him because I could (had to) hang back and watch him move with a good rider on top of him.  When he got into stride, nobody could catch up with him.  He trotted with huge strides and all the little Ayrabs, including Ibn, had to do a fair canter to keep up.

Got back to base and he pulsed down like he hadn't just done his second ever 30kms and looked like he could go out again.  I then finally made up my mind that he would do endurance.  But, I also wanted to see if he'd be happy doing dressage (I wanted to find what made HIM happy, not ME).  When this endurance yahoo with the funny helmet, strange saddle and green webbed bridle pitched up at the dressage lesson, everybody snickered behind their hands.  At the end of the lesson, jaws were hanging on the ground and the instructor proclaimed that it was the best lesson she had given all day because of the progress the horse (and rider) made in 40 mins.  I was then made to promise to at least THINK about doing dressage with him.  He could jump, and buck, would spook when he felt bored, and taught me how to sit a spinaround spook with a dropped shoulder thrown in for good measure.

He was extremely willing and his recoveries were excellent which was surprising for such a huge horse of his colouring.  I loved riding him, but battled to find a mounting block every time I wanted to get on board.

This is in actual fact a eulogy as he passed away after a colic op the end of March.

So, who knows what this amazing horse would have achieved, but I could tell that I had an excellent prospect on my hands.  Maybe it was the Ayrab blood?  ;-)))

Smiles
Kristene


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