This message is from: Diana Calder <dcal...@gmail.com> Wednesday, February 11, 2009, 12:30:28 AM, Karen Keith wrote:
KK> There's a Fjord mare for sale in Windsor, Ontario, which is apparently close KK> to Detroit. Right across the Detroit River - and therefore the Canada/US border - from Detroit, actually. KK> She's owned by a therapy program but she's not working out as a KK> therapy horse. They're asking $2,000 for her and need to find her KK> a new home soon. She might be registered, but the program didn't KK> get her promised papers. I posted about this mare back in early January, inquiring to the list about the possibility of an alternate way for them to get the registration papers. I passed the info on checking for a microchip on to them but I guess that they either haven't managed to track down a scanner or they couldn't find the chip, since they're still not listing any info regarding her pedigree in the Horsetopia ad. Note that while they were told that she was purebred and registered, they've never actually seen the papers, nor were they ever given her registration number. They call her Trina but I think that's just a barn name and probably bears no relation to her registered name. KK> She looks cute in her two pictures, sweet KK> face and looks a nice enough type. I just thought someone who is KK> closer to that area might be interested. We live less than an hour away, so we went up and took a look at her ourselves, right after I'd posted here about her. She's fine on the crossties, lifts her feet nicely for cleaning, and leads pretty well, though they do use a chain over her nose when leading her outdoors as she's been known to "set" her neck and use that drafty Fjord build to just drag her handler (keep in mind that these are volunteers, with varying levels of horse experience) in whichever direction she wants to go. Trina looks quite drafty in the photos but she's *extremely* flexible. I took a trial ride on her in the arena, and one of the things that I asked her for under saddle was a nice bend to touch her nose to my toe while standing still. She easily bent to do so in both directions. At a walk, she has a wonderful, stop-on-a-dime "whoa". However... She's a handful and a half when she decides to "go". After 5-10 minutes of quiet walking around the arena with only a few minor spooks and skittishness (she's not too thrilled about the mirrors, for one thing), she seemed to have settled quite nicely. I was sitting on her back, with her feeling quite calm and relaxed under me, and talking to several of the people from the facility when, without any warning whatsoever - no ear twitches, no tightening up, nothing - she abruptly did a 180 and launched straight into a dead run, like a roping horse taking off out of the chute after a calf. I'm not the greatest rider by any means, but I managed to stay on through the initial turn and launch. She headed straight across the width of the arena and didn't respond at all to my attempt to stop or at least turn her. I thought that she was going to go straight into the boards but at the last second, she made a sharp 90-degree turn and missed them. I, unfortunately, did neither - the first sharp left had already over-balanced me to the right and the second sent me back-first into the boards. By the time I managed to pick myself up, she'd stopped halfway down the length of the arena and was standing quite calmly, head lowered and relaxed. She let me limp my way down to her and take hold of the reins without any fuss. Was it a spook? Maybe. I'm not sure what would have spooked her - I didn't notice anything and neither did anyone from the facility, though my dad (who's hard of hearing) *did* think that maybe he'd heard something - but I wouldn't entirely rule out the possibility. Fjords do tend to calm fairly quickly after a spook - but, at least with ours, usually the head stays up and there's a little snorting going on for the next few minutes till they decide that the "danger" is truly gone. Was it a test? Again, maybe. Some horses just seem to feel the need for a rider to prove their right to be up there. Was it a miscue? Maybe. The previous owner's kids had supposedly ridden her - maybe one of them thought it would be cool to teach her a move like that. It's hard to guess. Or, maybe, like the Icelandic that I briefly owned, her training had been rushed and she was resistant to actual *work*, whether due to lack of confidence or whatever else might be the case. (Sidenote: The Icelandic just plain didn't think that, after five years of the easy life (good barn manners expected but no work, not even ground-driving, until her owner started her under saddle at five, selling her to me as "going nicely" - hah! sure, as long as you didn't expect her to let you ride longer than ten or fifteen minutes), she should actually be expected to earn her keep. The trail rider who bought her from me as "very, very green with the bad habit of rearing when she doesn't get her way" convinced her otherwise at the expense of a great deal of time, effort, and bruises, and she turned out to be a great trail horse for them. They were a good match - Beauty and I were not.) Trina, the Fjord in Windsor, is very definitely not a horse for a green rider or even an experienced but merely adequate rider (like me). Physically, she's very flexible, and she's very sweet in the barn. Given a good fenced area to work in, a lot of time, a return to horsey-kindergarten to make sure that she's got a solid background in the basics, and a confident, extremely good rider/trainer, she certainly has potential as a riding horse. Driving would almost certainly take even longer. She doesn't like anyone standing behind her (kind of a necessity for driving) and I was told that she *really* doesn't like a line wrapping around her rump when she's being lunged. One other detail about Trina that may help someone identify her - when she's sweaty and her long winter hair lays down, she appears to have a squiggly, rather S-shaped scar on her right chest. It's not visible normally, but the long winter hair makes it visible when it lays flat from sweating. KK> I don't know anything about her except what's in her ad at KK> Horsetopia.com and a couple of emails from Becky Mills,the head NARHA KK> instructor. I certainly don't mean to run Trina down - she's a cute little Fjord with a sweet barn temperament, great flexibility, very quick reflexes, and rather nice movement - but I do want to be sure that no one has any misconceptions about her being a suitable mount for a green or even adequate rider. I know that, at the time of my visit, Becky (yes, the same Becky mentioned above) was rather frustrated because they'd been getting so many inquiries from people who thought that, because she was a Fjord, she'd be great for their kids, a green rider, etc., despite the fact that they'd emphasized her skittish/green behaviour in the arena. Becky was actively discouraging their interest because she didn't want to place Trina in an inappropriate home. We'd hoped that perhaps what they were seeing was merely typical Fjord five-feet-sideways-plant-and-stop spooks (and I did sit through one of those, no problem) that would easily be resolved with a little time and patience, but Trina is more than either my dad or myself is physically equipped to take on at this point in our lives. We really don't have the appropriate facilities, either - we work our horses almost exclusively in the open as the only fenced area is their drylot. If anyone would like more details about my own experience with Trina, please contact me offlist. She'd certainly make a great companion horse or an even more terrific "project" for someone with plenty of time, patience, and skill. KK> Here's the Horsetopia ad: KK> http://horsetopia.horse-for-sale.org/classifieds/ad337975 KK> And here's the details of the woman who responded to my inquiries: KK> Becky Mills Head Instructor-NARHA,CTRII Windsor/Essex Therapeutic Riding KK> Association 4465 Huron Church line rd Windsor ON N9H 1H3 (519)969-1261 KK> beckymi...@wetra.ca KK> I hope this mare finds a new home! As do I! Somewhere out there, there's a would-be-Fjord-owner who's the perfect "fit" for Trina. Hopefully, if the word keeps spreading, they'll eventually manage to meet up. Diana (Who's still getting weekly chiropractic and massage therapy treatments to get all the strained muscles and ligaments loosened up and working properly again after being thrown. Luckily, I didn't break any bones and the only thing that cracked was my helmet. *shrug* Those are the risks you take when you choose to play with horses - especially ones that aren't your own and have somewhat less than well-documented histories.) -- Best regards, Diana mailto:dcal...@gmail.com Important FjordHorse List Links: Subscription Management: http://tinyurl.com/5msa7e FH-L Archives: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw Classified Ads: http://tinyurl.com/5b5g2f
