You have got to be kidding...

Just wrote a big entry about our first show, and it vanished. Waaaah!

The photos are nice, but they don't tell the whole story! I wanted to get out and git r done, as it were. Good or bad, just one show, a couple of classes under our belt so I could know how much work we needed. Lots, it turned out. But it wasn't a disgrace and we didn't hurt ourselves. And my student did very well in her English classes too. I was pretty proud.

In the beginning

I thought I had a real find. Still underweight and on the road to fitness, he was very amenable, seemed to know his stuff with regard to reining, even went well in a snaffle and was generally not a difficult ride.

That came later when he was worm free, vaccinated, gnarled feet trimmed, fed and fit. Then I might've begun to question myself. When he wouldn't stand in the middle of the pen without stressing about a transition or a spin, when he started grabbing the bit and not letting go, when after a couple of months he still couldn't hold himself on the right rein.

Every day I would ride with my trainer. I had the summer to prepare for my exam by becoming a good enough western rider. However first of all, I had to work out this little bundle of not so much joy who would happily throw in a bucking fit in place of a canter transition and might hold on to the bit so much in trot he wouldn't come back to walk, no matter how many circles and eventually jerks in the mouth I did, yet another time he'd throw a fit on the firm pull on the mouth, like I was ripping his head off. I was baffled. I was a good rider, and my trainer was right there, coaching me through the problems, but I felt like a complete idiot. His tensions and anxieties were like nothing I'd ever worked with before, and there was nothing familiar about the way I needed to ride him. He was still full of stallion attitude and strength and didn't trust his rider. I didn't trust him. I was always shortening my reins without thinking about it, English habit, and he would fight more, wanting his head. But I didn't trust him enough to give him much. Endless circle of stress!

Meet QTS Streke Hitter

I stopped my old blog because the subject of horses in my life became SUPER frustrating. I was, and still am, working with lovely horses, but not horses I could actually DO anything with. Here I am living in Quebec and so close to the western world, training occasionally with an awesome reining trainer (on aforementioned do-nothing horses) and having started my FEQ Western Rider courses 1, 2 and 3, which I passed with 'exceeding standard' each time, which was ace.

However, being a person who a) always wants to learn everything good there is to know about horses, riding, different methods of working with horses and different disciplines and b) who has dreamed pretty much since starting riding 20 years ago of riding western, when my trainer told me she'd like to keep working with me and that the best way to carry on working and studying was to buy a horse...well...I kinda went right ahead and did it.

I wasn't super stupid. I found an ad in my local tack store showing a nice paint horse in a reining class, asked my more-knowledgeable-than-I friend to call the owner for info, asked my trainer her opinion; she knew the person who had been riding the horse and called her for info which came back ok. I checked with my vet and farrier - the vet knew him and indeed was the horse's vet. The consensus was, not a bad choice. So off I went to see him. Toby was a barely 14hh black and white registered tobiano Paint. He was a stallion until October 2011, cribbed, hadn't been ridden for around 2 years - he's 7 now - pretty well bred - his grandsire is QTS Poco Streke who apparently won some APHA titles in 1995 and has sired plenty of good reining horses.

He was living in a pretty run down barn and the first thing he did when I put my hand out to let him sniff was to throw himself to the back of his dark stall. In short, he wouldn't let me touch him. He was skinny, his feet were bad, his owner told us she didn't vaccinate for anything other than tetanus and flu, he was nervous, he was overly playful when she put him in the round pen to the point of aggression, which she actively encouraged. Plenty of red flags, but he was, despite the ribs, scabs and awful feet, a very good looking horse. A bit short and his neck was like two short planks, but I liked him. I didn't see him ridden, but I asked to take him on trial. She agreed, so he was to go to my trainer's barn the next Monday.

This was all back in May. I will do my best to follow up if and when things allow!