Pinky, Freedom and Kit
Our horses are some of our favorite members of our family. We own them primarily for pleasure. We also take on horses to retrain and/or sell. We ride and train horses in English, focusing in general horsemanship and good manners. We like
Pinky is a 10 year old cremello Hancock paint mare (APHA). She is as gentle as she is beautiful, and is a pleasure to ride. Even though Pinky's training is in Dressage, she is a great trail horse and even enjoys the occasional team penning. Pinky is also a great lesson horse and has even been known to give a pony ride to my friends kids. Pinky was my (Ellen's) second horse and is true family. She the kind of horse that you keep forever.
Pinky was bred in May this year. We are really exited about her new baby. We bred her with a really handsome paint horse, Vegas, owned by one of our friends. We think she might be having a girl. I hope so!
Click a picture below to open the photo gallery:
Freedom
Freedom is an Appaloosa stock horse. He was given to us outright, as a green horse to train and sell. The people that gave him to us were told that he was 8 and fully trained. They weren't horse people and this was their first horse. Their father-in-law, knowing better, put him up for sale after he reared up during a trail ride. He couldn't be sold, not that they didn't try.
When we accepted him, our idea was to train him and sell him, but his training is taking some time. We took him to the vet the first weekend, and found out that was in fact 4 years old. He still had his wolf teeth, which were part of the reason he was flipping out when we put a bit in his mouth. Bits can be quite painful on a horse that still have these unnecessary teeth. After working with him a while, we came to the conclusion that he was abused during his first starting, becuase he flips anytime he sees a whip or if you flip the reines while you're riding him.
This is a case where a unscrupulous horse trader sold an inappropriate problem horse to someone who didn't know much about horses, for no other reason than a fast buck and with little regard to their safety. This happens more than people realize. To avoid having this happen to you, I offer the following advice:
1) Take lessons from a trusted trainer before you consider buying a horse.
2) Enlist their assistance in buying a horse.
3) Get a vet check on the horse PRIOR to purchase.
4) Ride the horse yourself at least once to make sure he is suitable.
I know I've painted the worst picture of Freedom, but it in't the whole story. I have been riding Freedom off and on for a year now, and he has come a long way. He is walking and trotting with balance and control, and is increasingly soft-mouthed. His on-the-ground handling has improved greatly. He has a good heart and tries so hard, and there's not a malicious bone is his body. Were this not so, he would never have come so far. But he is high spirited, very spooky, and has a lot of baggage, which we will work through together.
Kit is Jerrys horse, who we purchased from McKiddie Performance Horses. If you want a great horse, they're the ones to see. Kit's bloodlines include Doc Bar, Peppy San Badger and Leo. She has 60 days on her, we are in the process of reminding her of her training and honing her balance and control. She had a little bit of ground manner issues from being off training for a while, but we worked through them pretty fast with some basic showmanship training (very basic). It is great fun getting her ready for Jerry, who is not a horse person. After all, green on green makes back and blue.
Do check back as we add photos of Kit, Pinky and Freedom.
