We had the chance to meet a beautiful young lady today and
it was a wonderful learning opportunity for all involved. Her name is Freya and
she is a 16.0-16.1 hand high Warlander (Friesian/Andalusian cross), just turned
6 years old in April. Having never worked with this breed before this was a fun
experience for us. She a bay horse with hints of dapples. Really a beautiful
and well-built mare.
We headed over to the barn to get introduced. Michael did
his usual “horseman’s handshake” letting the horse get several good sniffs and
rubbed her all over. No “oh no spot” showed up so that was a good sign. She
really liked the attention. We then headed out to the corral which was about
the size of a small cutting pen.
Freya’s Backstory: As one can imagine, Freya is a big mover which
is one of the reasons she needs a new home. She was originally purchased, with
supposed training, for a novice rider and proved to be too much for said rider.
Freya has size and power which is, reasonably, scary to a novice. The well-meaning
humans got Freya some more “training” but after four months the “trainer”
stated that the horse is too much for the novice. So the humans pulled Freya
out of training. Now the humans just want to find the beautiful horse a home
where she can have a job and help her reach her full potential. Sadly the
humans are not in a position to put more money into training and it appears
that the current facility where Freya is at is for sale so she needs a new
home.
As is our way we swapped out the web halter for our rope
halter and got to work. Laurie worked with Freya first. She got some nice
hindquarter and forequarter yields, some backing, simple lunging (all 3 gaits),
lateral flexion and some nice leading from beside. Then Michael stepped in.
Lunging with direction changes (all 3 gaits), yields of the hindquarters,
yields at the forequarters, lateral flexion, backing (steady pressure). We
tried some follow the nose/feel and some “de-spooking exercises. This really
showed us where the previous “trainer” skipped steps in building a good
foundation. What Freya didn’t know she picked up pretty quick. She had some
sass a time or two but we kept on working and she got over herself. Then we did
some “ground school circles” which incorporate impulsion, bend, yields of the
hindquarters, backing and yields of the forequarters before impulsion happens
again. Took a few tries but she did a really nice job. She did work on both the
14’ and a 25’ lead line which was cool.
We then saddled her without fuss. She had not ever worn a
rear cinch so we took it off of our saddle. She really did not want to take the
bit (smooth snaffle) at first but eventually we got it on and fitted to her. We
asked her to move out and she got fussy. Assuming (correctly) that something wasn’t
fitting right, we made some adjustments to the saddle and pad and tried again.
MUCH better results. The young hand rode her first. They did not communicate all that well but the
ride was successful after some sass. Freya needs a confident leader in the
saddle who understands how to squeeze (not kick) to ask for impulsion and who
has good rein management. She has a really pretty extended trot, a passable
(right now) seated trot and a lope that can cover some ground but needs work on
the rating of seat, speed and collections even though she does it on her own at
times in a beautiful manner.
She needs her ground skills improved but her manners were
nice. Picked up her feet. Loaded decent in a trailer and stood tied without a
fuss. She needs help with the bit and she needs refinement and confidence under
saddle to find the joy in the horse/human partnership. We REALLY like this
mare. We have to REALLY consider our set up at home for training a horse this
size who needs work on the long line or “larger than we have round pen” because
our 40’ pen is not going to cut it with a horse that moves like she does. This
is going to be a tough choice as we normally steer away from the warmblood
breeds (personal preference) but this mare is something special.
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