Steve and I went up to Berthoud, CO to see Starfire Fjords. Oh my it was cuteness overload! First when I got there the trainer/breeder was in the arena working her gorgeous stallion Obelisk in dressage movements. He was doing a wonderful half pass when I walked in. It was effortless.
Beth dismounted and took me around the farm showing me some of the various horses. One field had two little babies in it! It was a Fjord Front!
There was one baby with the rare star on his face. Fjords usually don't have white markings.
They sure have crazy hair like most foals but I think Fjords take the cake on this!
After soaking in the cuteness of the foals she brought out Gus a 5 year old that has had about 6 rides on him. He was beautiful and sweet. Beth went to grooming and tacking him up, since I didn't have a brush I just stroked him and moved my hand over him to see how he reacted. I also lifted his feet. He was a really good boy.
Beth showed me him in her indoor round pen. He moved nicely I thought and responded well.
Then he was tacked up and she rode him around a bit to show me what he knew. He wasn't very sure about turning or stopping and other aids. She started to teach him how to back while I was watching. He learned quickly. She said his price would come with 30 days under saddle and that he learns fast so the exposure in those days would get him along quite well. He was pretty good for only a few rides, nothing like that one Fjord mare that was having a lot of issues. He stood well tied, was tacked and groomed easily and great with his feet.
Next she had me get up on him and tried to get him to move around but he wasn't too sure about lunging on a line with someone on his back. So she led us around a bit which I guess was fine. If he doesn't have much of a stop button I didn't want to really ride him on my own yet. I wasn't ready to say yes, put 30 days on him because I wasn't going to buy him. She was still going to work on him but said she would do more work if I was really interested. I don't want to ask that unless I'm sure!!!
Next up was Jack. He was just as nice and sweet and good to groom etc. She rode him in the bigger arena and took him through all his gaits. She rode for quite a while. Finally it was my turn and she showed me how he was trained to "park" at the mounting block but standing on it and lifting the rein up to get him to step to the block. I mounted up and settled in. I was tense because he had little spooks under saddle with her, nothing much but it still made me a little worried about how he'd react to me.
I rode him around at the walk. He didn't like much contact on the reins, Beth had me move my hands forward when I asked him to walk since even what I thought was light pressure made him think I wanted him to stop. I slowly relaxed more and walked him in different directions to see how he responded.
I liked them both but was uncomfortable with the whole situation. Gus was very green and Jack was a little and Beth made me nervous by saying my legs were too far back so she sort of did a lesson on leg position. I'm so confused, my leg is either too far forward or too far back. I just want to ride, lessons can often take the fun out of things and I felt like I was being judged rather than me trying to concentrate on judging the horse. I may go back in October if I haven't found a horse and reassess those two horses, they are at the top, tippy top and a little beyond of my price range so it would be a month or so before I had the cash to buy either one of them.
It was really nice to see good Fjords rather than backyard, untouched, Fjords. Might be worth another visit. Gotta love those leg stripes!!!
1 comment:
"Buy my horse, but please, let me micromanage you first!"
I see a bit of an issue with that as well. If you were a bad rider [which you are not] and you were yanking on the horse's mouth, kicking excessively, anything like that, I could understand. But your posture looks fine to me!
At any rate, Gus looks pretty cute.
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