I went to the ala state horse fair sat. They had a thing called "After the Whisperer" with ken McNabb, Stacy Westfall, and Jimmy Driver. The premise was that the horse had already been broke to ride but had little or no saddle miles on them and/or were problem horses.
It was cool i thought. Stacy Westfall earned my respect by giving up and not allowing the "rider" with her mount the horse, a warmblood mare, because the horse would not give to the bit, was resistant, and "needs lot more work". She could have easily proceeded and it would not have been fair to the horse or rider. The riders were local people who volunteered to ride the horses as the clinicians worked with them. Ken McNabb was awesome. His horse he drew was a squirrely arabian and I thought oh boy this is gonna be fun, cause the horse was sorta a hot maniac. One thing he said i really really appreciated, he said "My goal in the roundpen is not to wear a horse down until it behaves thru exhaustion. my goal is to train a horse so that someday I wont ever have to take it into a roundpen again". I watched and he talked constantly to the "rider" and as she ground worked the horse he was constantly taking off his coat and plopping it down in a different area of the roundpen, dragging out cavalettis in new places for the horse to step over etc, pointing out how the horse was pulling on her and what she needed to do. by the end the horse just seemed dead broke and calm, just totally calm and the girl got on him and rode him around a few times, rode him over cavalettis etc. It was nice. Jimmy driver put his horse under saddle really really early in the game, he said that is the way he does it, but I was thinking yeah, nice for you, the rider can handle it, most people couldnt. BUT THE COOLEST thing... the horse had no name and they asked people to drop by the booth and suggest a name for the horse, a rescue, a large sorrel thoroughbred and he looked exactly like Jaspar so I went to the booth and wrote in Jaspar "because he is the color of jaspar stone". AND I WON!!. they had the audience vote and it narrowed down to 'astro" and Jaspar and the crowd just cheered WAY louder on the jaspar vote. I was so thrilled about that! Even more thrilled than the bridle I won for it, just to know another horse is named after jaspar... Then a demo by the Noavel (sp?) headstall guy. Gosh you guys, what can we do about this. This is the most horrible inhumane thing i have ever witnessed. Three rescue horses, one boney, at least 200 pounds underweight, heads cranked in by the headstall which is NOTHING but a STEEL, HEAVY STEEL, hackamore, being made to behave through pain, fear and intimidation. At the end it was like magic, as soon as the headstall was removed and they were taken out of the RP they ALL started rearing as if on command. Geez, wonder why, maybe because they had spent the last hour being cranked in with a heavy STEEL HACKAMORE?!? I am gonna email the Alabama Horse Council and express my feelings about it. Janice -- yipie tie yie yo
