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[RC] Race Brain (was "perfect" horse for the HW rider) - desertrydr1Oh, but it's SO EXCITING that way. He's only trying to give your life a little spice! My mare, now 22, could only do LD's because of that same thing--major race brain. It was really my fault, as I let her go on her first LD and she is very competitive. She just thought that was the way it was done, and I could never convince her otherwise. Every ride my arms got a little longer. I don't think they would have made it thru a 50 without coming out of the sockets!I took her on (what passes in our area) a competitive trail ride/poker ride last Saturday. I didn't want to bring her, but my friend wanted me to go and didn't want to loan me either of hers. It was an interesting experience, to say the least. In our area, CTR consists of a short (like less than 10 miles) ride with about 20 obstacles along the way. The obstacles are, for the most part, nothing a horse would see on a real trail ride (but how are paint horse people expected to know that, since most of them think a trail ride is 1/2 to 1 hour at a walk). We decided not to do the competitve part, just the poker ride. Mostly because it was first come/first served at the obstacles, and you ended up standing around at each one for 1/2 hour or more. So after about the first 3-4 obstacles, we passed all the competitive people, and then when we came to an obstacle, there was no one there, and we could practice until someone competing came along (which they never did until long after we left). I was on my mare, age 22. My girlfriend was on her 19 yr old Arab endurance mare, the other two people in our group were on geldings that had done endurance and were in the 7-10 age group. I got to lead at all the obstacles because my mare would do them with little or no discussion. Things like picking up a flag from one barrel and taking it to another barrel about 50' away, jumping, straddling a log and sidepassing off, scary stuffed animals, platforms to step on and do a 360 on top of, water, dead animal smells, etc. The only one I was pretty sure she wouldn't do was WALK up a steep hill and then WALK back down. She sees no sense in walking up hills when running is so much more fun,and so much easier. The only real problem is that she did not take more than about 10 walk steps all day! She just KNEW it was a race, and I was being ridiculous and holding her back just to make her lose! I haven't done anything competitive on her in at least 8 or 9 years, but the minute she saw all those horses, she knew it was TIME TO FLY. The people I was riding with were really impressed that she was such a great horse on the obstacles, and I was SO PROUD of her. I've been telling people for a long time that she's probably the best horse I will ever own. Now they know why. BTW< her daddy was a polish import and had the same exact spirit of competitiveness. jeri
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