This message is from: Kathleen Spiegel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> I have a mule, a thoroughbred, aTB/QH cross and a Fjord. I am enjoying the heck out of driving and riding the fjord and driving the mule. If I had it to do over I would stick with the mule and the Fjord, but it is not because they are easier. They are different and more demanding than the more traditional horses because they both force you to respect their exceptional strength and their personality. In reading the list, everyone sings the virtues of the Fjord as being very easy. I would suspect that they are very easy to train improperly and that much of the reputation for being ponyish or mulish is because their temperament is so forgiving and calm, as owners we are willing to forgive a lot of indiscretions and maybe do not get them to their full potential. For example, I have my mule driving but a professional trainer with mule experience could not get her to round pen. He told me to work with her until I found the key to moving her forward on command and then build on that, that to insist on her acting like a QH would not work. Advice I follow on the Fjord. For a trainer who depends on the roundpen method as the foundation for a training program ( most of the western trainers around here) she is stubborn. To me she is a sweetheart and as long as I respect her, I will eventually get her to learn what I need for her to learn. The fjord and the mule take everything in stride but when the mood strikes, they will push to the limit, including ground manners. When you let them know they have overstepped, the immediate contrition is funny to watch adn they are suddenly as pure as the driven snow. A driving trainer at a CDE clinic this weekend was working with me and my fjord and four other horses and drivers. We were working on collection and getting the horses to work on the bit. He was pleasantly surprised by my Fjord and complimented her on her way of going, walk, trot, willingness to go and was absolutely sure she was unusual for a fjord. He thought she was 15 hands tall. ( she is barely 14hh) and confided that he had trained two and was training a third fjord. He said his experience was that they were ponyish with ponyish gaits and the third one was either stubborn or too smart. Obviously some people do have this opinion and it is based on experience. However, as I watched him work with the five horses, he was somewhat frustrated that he could alter the behavior of the other four horses so fast, but it took him a longer time to figure out the fjord. He was asking her to break at the poll and work on the bit, a position that for this horse was very unatural - even in the pasture, she runs like her head is a snorkle- neck straight up and head parallel to the ground. Once he figured out her cue, she immediately looked beautiful and he said she could easily do an 8 or 9 on the dressage test, but it really hurt his pride I think because he could not use the same tactics on the Fjord as the hotter horses. He apologized for not being able to do a "quick fix", as if that were expected. I certainly did not, I was looking for some help in figuring out what we should be doing and was happy with the session. I know that this is something that we will work on slow and steady for the next couple of months. Long story short, maybe some of the reputation is from experience and maybe as owners and trainers we are partially responsible for that reputation by not respecting the differences between these horses and the more common ones and giving people the impression that all you have to do is treat them nice and they will be instantly trained.
Just a thought
