Kickers

[SandyDSA <SandyDSA@aol.com>]

Just a note....first of all, our stallion never NEVER had remotely wanted to
kick ANYONE started to after being rear-ended and BITTEN in the rump by
another stallion on a ride. The otehr horse was "ridden" by a fellow who had
no business even BEING at the ride, since he was out of control on a sreaming,
jigging idiot of a horse the WHOLE time - cutting people off, rear ending
them, zig zaggin all over the trails. As it turned out , he came into a vet
check right behind us - LITERALLY - and whilst the timer was taking our
stallion's pulse, this idiotic horse owner allowed his stallion to come up and
bite our stallion in the butt, causing our horse to take a kick at him,
grazing the timer in the leg. She stood up to yell at our horse and I stopped
her as she was starting to yell about him being a nasty kicker, and as I
pointed out to ther the moron behind us, she turned her wrath onto that guy,
telling him to back off. It took 2 YEARS from that day to RETRAIN our stallion
that every horse within biting distance was NOT going to attack. Then at
Pendleton the NEXT year, I had to tell one rider - also with a stallion (who
had incidentally been standing quietly until his handler got bored and started
enticing him to rear) - to get his horse off of our back end. After a dirty
look, he strolled off a ways. Today - 4 years later, i STILL have to be
cautious, not because I have a kicker - we don't HAVE any of those - but
because people won't be responsible for THEIR parts in creating a horse that
kicks. Horses don't like strangers any better than we do, and if we expect
them to behave like little ladies and gentlemen in a crwod of STRANGERS, we
have a HUGE responsibility to keep them at a respectful distance form those
strangers, stallions or not. I have had my old mare bitten in the neck my a
horses at a ater stop, while the rider simply stood there letting him do it. I
can't begin to figure that begligent stupidity out. But my mare was bitten and
wouldn't drink at that stop as a result.

So people, before you judge a horse a "kicker", make certain that you have
done nothing to WARRANT a defensive action by another horse. If you rear end
my mare and she laces out at you, at least have the common sense to understand
that you caused it. Horses that kick for no apparent reason are the rarity.
Horses that kick out at strangers defensively are not only more common but
also MUST be more understood.
s