Weekend Fun

Since our last lesson, I have taken Hola out to be worked on the longe line several times. He's a pro! He hasn't done any halts and turn in to look at me in confusion, he marches around like a good horse and he will speed up and slow down with my voice. It's funny to realize that a kissing noise really gets him to move more forward rather than clucking. I look forward to showing off our abilities to Betsy on Tuesday.

Now for my weekend adventure...

On Saturday, I had a friend come up to visit. We had gotten to know each other through working together with others to help an aging race horse get off the track. His name is Top Bunk and he earned over $575,000 racing and was, at the time running in $4,000 claimers at the age of 11. With the help of many kind, big hearted people on the internet we were able to raise the money to claim him. One of the people who helped us was a canadian folk singer named Garnet Rogers. Garnet and his wife had long ago bought a former race horse at an auction. Garnet turned that experience of buying an older "used up" race horse at auction into one of his most popular songs - "Small Victory." Here he is playing that song:



A few weeks ago, I saw a poster in town saying he was playing at a nearby art gallery literally three blocks from my home. I contacted my friends and one of them could make it to the show. She came up and spent the day in Traverse City. She met Hola and Toby and took photos of us. We also did a little wine tasting and caught a glimpse of the Schooner Festival.

Then we headed out to the concert. As we walked towards the entrance, we noticed Garnet sitting outside enjoying the summer weather and the view of the tall ships on the bay. We stopped and introduced ourselves as part of the "Top Bunk Crowd." He was genuinely pleased to meet us and happy that Bunkie is enjoying life in a pasture with his buddies. That evening he told the audience about the two of us meeting him just prior to the show and he dedicated the song "Small Victory" to us. It was very cool! He even proceeded to tell the story about Top Bunk and how his wife, Gail, and he helped us out. Then he told everyone about his horses and the mare in the song Small Victory. The mare has since passed but they still have her offspring. Garnet's wife is active with sport horses and takes care of their horses on their farm.

Here are a few shots I took at the concert:




He's doing a pretty good pirate imitation in this one. I guess he was influenced by the tall ships...




And just for good measure, here's a photo of Top Bunk at his retirement home near Port Huron, MI:



It was a fantastic concert and I highly recommend going to see Garnet if he is in your area. Now I've got to get back into the grind of work and quit daydreaming about the fun I had this past weekend. :)

He's So Smart!

I'm lucky.

I fell into owning a very smart horse. This horse, that has been given to me (in fact both my current horses have been freebies), is cute, friendly and best of all smart! I'm talking about Hola C Bright...

He hadn't been touched since his last lesson which I video taped. I went out of town the next day after that lesson and didn't return home until this past Friday night. So he's had 11 days of being fed, stall cleaned and hanging out with the shed gang for his turnout before I did anything with him.

He didn't miss a beat.

Once tacked up and longe line attached, he trucked around in a steady trot, got himself round, and at one point he was even using his topline so well I wanted to just cry! I can't believe my luck in getting this horse!

He was learning so easily that I wanted to speed up the process! I told Betsy, "If you had your trailer here you would be taking him with you to train!" Then I got my wits about me... He won't be going anywhere for a couple of reasons. 1) I just can't afford to send him into a month of training, and 2) I want to train him with Betsy's help! That was the whole idea in the first place. I wanted a horse to retrain with the help of a good professional. It's so rewarding and my relationship with my horse will be that much more special. It may not go as quickly but I want to be a part of it.

So later today I was day dreaming about Hola's progress. His first time in draw reins he would hardly move forward, mostly sideways. Second time in draw reins he moved forward quite a bit but had the occasional "why am i going in circles?" and would stop and look at Betsy. The third time was the charm. Today he was just flat out boring to watch as he marched around in his daisy clipping way and I couldn't have been prouder! He figured out that if he gave in to the bit that it was easier on himself and if he gave to the bit and had some bend that Betsy would keep the longe line loose (reward!). Such essential and key concepts which he has now figured out. What a smart boy! What a beautiful boy! I only hope that we continue on with this kind of success.

Over the holiday weekend I went on a couple trail rides with Toby. I rode with my friend Karen who is usually gone most weekends judging horse shows. She said the most complimentary words to me about Hola - she said he'd make a great hunter horse in the ring because he's so cute with an intelligent face and good movement that any judge would automatically be drawn to him over all the other horses in the ring. That's such a great thing to hear coming from a judge! I sure hope she's right.

Tomorrow, Hola has an appointment with the equine dentist. I'm assuming he hasn't had hardly any work done on his teeth. I know he hasn't had any dental work in almost two years. Hopefully he will be easy to work with for the dentist unlike my other guy who has horrible teeth and jaw alignment... There's always something with horses.

Holiday Farm Visit

I'm back from my business trip in Fort Wayne, IN.

On my way down for my business trip I was invited to stop by and visit Holiday Farm - birth place of Hola C Bright.


I was so excited. I was going to meet up with the Sebright's again and meet the Gilmore's (Hola's breeder) for the first time at their farm. And what a gorgeous farm it is!!!

The Gilmore's are phasing out of racing and their farm is now home to many retirees and "pets." They have a couple mini donkeys, a mule named Peggy Sue, a couple 2 yr olds that were taking some time off of their training to allow them mature a bit, and a few retired broodmares and racers that are near and dear to them. They had no foals nor mares in foal. They are simply racing what they currently have and not continuing on with new young horses. Here are a couple of their retired broodmares who are about 18-20 yrs of age.

The farm is fascinating. It's part working farm, part playground, part shrine to the ones they love. I got a tour of the 300 acres and saw some but not all of the highlights. There's a random tree in the woods covered in dog license tags, an area where you can "zip line" across a stream, another area where the christmas trees are planted after christmas. There are shrines along the paths to beloved dogs that have since passed away and random signs to describe areas of the property such as "alligator alley" - remember this is in Michigan...

You just know it's a very special place to the Gilmore's. Here they both are with one of their beautiful 2 yr olds:

I'm not sure I know how to describe how I felt about learning so much of the history of my new guy Hola. I've never been able to learn so much history of one of my horses. But with this guy, I'm learning all about his racing days right down to the super huge stall he was born in. It's pretty neat!

Holiday Farm was an absolute treat to visit. The barn is an architectural gem where I could just imagine myself spending time hanging out in the hay loft (which was full of hay). Part of the barn is set up to foster puppies for a dog rescue. THANKFULLY there were no puppies there because I'm not sure I could have walked away without one. And all the stalls in the barn were reconfigured so that all of them are now double stall size. It would be a dream home for any horse!

They also keep some cattle on part of their property. As you can see in this photo, they had a soft spot for a calf they found who doesn't exactly fit with the rest of the herd:

And the nicest people on the planet have to be the Sebrights...

They gave me a tour, shared fun stories about their times on the property and complained loudly about the other day when Mr. Gilmore rode over to their home on Peggy Sue and Peggy Sue decided to leave a gift in the driveway. Meet Peggy Sue:

I ultimately spent much more time at Holiday Farm than I had intended and had a fabulous time in the process. Hola was lucky to have started out his life with good people. I'm lucky to have met them.