This message is from: Larson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Hi Brigid,
A couple of years ago, Ginny Cowles hosted a Fjord Day at her Ranch,
Los Trigos. We were
treated to a reining exhibition among other delightful events. A gal, whose
name I don't remember, and her
Fjord peformed an admirable reining pattern. They were not exceedingly "fast".
However, though "fast" is
flashy, the judge is looking more for accuracy and ease with which the horse
performs the various manuevers.
My hubby is a reiner. One day Winnie and I were watching him fence one of his
reiners. For those of you
who may not be familiar with this, it is a training technique where the horse
is loped across the arena from
fence to fence and required to either rollback or slide at the fence. Winnie
and I decided we could do that.
So off we went at a lope. Not one of my more brilliant ideas. She performed a
beautiful sliding stop, front
feet churning with her back legs so far under her we were almost sitting on the
gound. But being a rather
drafty girl and not at all delicate, Winnie slid much further than I had
anticipated. We slid right through the
gate into the adjoining round pen with me laughing so hard I rolled backwards
off her rump. I think, in
competition, our score would have been rather low :-)
I don't think Winnie and I will try "working cows" though where you are
required to perform an abreviated
reining pattern then work a cow down the side of the arena. Some of those cows
look pretty big when
you're only 14 or so hands above the ground!
