I just got back from the field trials I go to every year. but this time I didnt have what I felt was a suitable horse in good enough shape. It is always such a mob there, 200-300 gaited horses all glommed up together and its always a mad house. But someone died up in Georgia and their funeral was today so the crowd was very very small, maybe thirty or forty horses. I wasnt riding so I was able to just sit and chat with people, walked around and asked questions etc. Someone insisted we ride their horses and I absolutely refused but my husband the idiot, accepted and told me later the worse horse we have is a hundred times better, more obedient, better gaited, easier to control, more responsive that the horse he rode, and believe me, if i told you on this list the name of the woman who owns the horse and you know anything at all about biglick walking horse showing at the national level you would KNOW her name, she is that famous. ANd my husband said the horse she loaned him made my stonewall, my nuttiest horse, seem deadbroke and calm in comparison, plus her horse, barefoot, d, was a hard hard pacer the whole ride he said. I seemed to be more able at guessing gaits or more aware or something, because I noticed at least one out of five was not gaiting smoothly. Most of them wore long shanked bits and tie downs. But I had some VERY interesting conversations. Just chatting. There is one woman, a trainer, who takes horses up there for sale, I have heard many people make great comments about her and her methods, but this time someone asked a man next to me if he knew if she was a good trainer and he said "no. I wouldnt send any animal to her. She forces them to do things by any means she can, she's nasty and mean and beats them and when you get them home they act like they've had a nervous breakdown." SOmeone else told me the big hot trend now among sellers at auctions is to give a horse nyquil every day for three days and it can go to auction perfectly calm "and not drool or act drunk or anything and it wont wear off for two weeks and by then the seller is long gone". I commented to one who has been around years and years, decades, about how fired up the dogs and horses were but many are so well trained and he said "honey, Lord if you only KNEW the drugging goes on around here, ace to calm horses, drugs to fire up the dogs...." then I had a really heartwarming conversation with a man who had a couple of horses tied to a picket line and said he had just brought them along to get used to things, that they were "in training" and that his best horses were inside the trailer because he kept them out of the rain, they deserved that, he said. "Even tho my best horse, he's trotty, but you know, I think a trotty horse is real sure footed for field trialing I dont care what anybody says"... anyway. I think things are changing all over. For a big redneck as can be redneck man to tell me to stay away from a young trainer female because she is mean to horses, heck, that like the sun came up in the west this morning! Janice
-- yipie tie yie yo
