Cavalli Connections » The lifelong pursuit of classical riding.

Horses

This is Zac, aka Pasha Warrior. (He is full arab and when we found out Pasha Warrior was his “real” name we laughed and laughed and laughed…because he’s so sweet!) We leased him when I was 9 and he was 7, and bought him when I was 11 and he was 9 – I’m 28 now and he’s 26. This is, hands down, the best horse in the world. If it weren’t for Zac, I probably wouldn’t be here writing about horses. He was my “Black Stallion” (which was even cooler when we saw in his bloodlines that he’s a distant cousin of Cas Ole, the horse that played the black stallion in the movie!). I’ve been through pretty much everything on Zac and I trust him to the ends of the earth. Not to mention he tolerates pretty much anything. When I was about 11 I had a burning desire to be able to get on him, bareback, with no stool. He’s only 14.2, but I’m also only 5’2’’ – probably a few inches shorter when I was 11. He stood in his stall, calmly eating hay, while I backed up to the other side of the stall and ran and jumped…over and over and over again. He tolerated my sister and I seeing if it was possible to ride double, bareback, and jump (turns out that you fall off immediately upon landing, haha). He is the type of horse you walk out to in the pasture without a halter, jump on (now I can, thankfully) and he will go right to the gate. Or, he will go right to my Mom’s horse who will allow his halter to be put on from Zac’s back, and we all go to the gate together. My Mom, since she started teaching, has used him for so many kids as their first lesson horse. He knows exactly what is going on, and tunes in to my Mom’s voice like his life depends on it. She is at the point where she has to tell kids, “Do you-know-what, you-know-when” because Zac will just follow her voice commands. He is also the horse everyone rides to get their confidence back. He knows his rider’s level and immediately snaps into that “mode”. This means when you put a 3-year-old on him, he walks on eggshells. When I ride him, we yahoo all over the place (sometimes!). When my Mom rides him, he looks like a mini grand prix dressage horse. He just knows.

This is Wilt. Wilt is 16.2 and is my Mom’s special horse. He is half Thoroughbred and half Paint. His Dad is a very “loud” Paint and he came out with one white foot. She got him when he was 3 because she wanted to have a horse trained by Barry McKie, previous riding master to the Queen of England. So off Wilt went, down to FL from Feb-Nov of his 4^th year. He’s 15 now! Wilt has the greatest work ethic of any horse you will ever meet. He gets very upset if my Mom is in the arena (which he can see if he cranes his neck and looks through the bars of his stall) teaching lessons for too long and doesn’t come ride him. It exacerbates the situation if I ride Zac and then come back and untack (their stalls are right next to each other). He starts doing circles and nickering when he sees me standing next to his saddle in the tackroom (which is across the aisle from his stall and his saddle is the first one). As I mentioned in a previous post, if you stand next to Wilt with his bridle, or even hang it where he can reach it, he will attempt to put it on himself. He knows that his job is to work on getting better with my Mom. Imagine a little kid in a classroom listening to a teacher, hand raised as high as possible, begging to be called on. That’s Wilt. In the past few years, as I became more interested in classical riding, I started riding Wilt occasionally. It helps so much to ride a horse that knows it all (and when he doesn’t, pretends to). Wilt tolerates me, will occasionally give me a playful shove when I get off, just to let me know I’m not doing everything quite right, and in general I think he thinks of me as someone to play with. I can go out in the field with a pocket full of treats, and Wilt will watch from a distance for as long as he can stand it, and then he will make a beeline for me. I will start running, and he will be right on my heels. The pasture he is in is actually two pastures with the gate open at the top so the horses can go back and forth. The funniest thing to do is to go into the second pasture, have him follow me down the fence, and then I got through the fence and run as fast as I can for the main gate. He will spin and run as fast as he can up the line, through the gate, and towards the main gate. We usually get there at about the same time. Zac is usually standing somewhere nearby, watching us and rolling his eyes.

Trixie is 12, 13.1 hands, and actually belongs to a little girl right now (one of my friends) and I get to ride her 1-3 times per week. But I am next in line to get her sometime in the next year or so as my friend grows out of her and moves on. I am so excited to put all my newfound knowledge into training her. Trixie reminds me of the female version of Zac, with a little Diva attitude thrown in. Her nickname (albeit longer) is Trixie Lou. She is a mustang and was born in the wild. Both her eyes are deep blue, her body is brown and white, and her mane and tail are white and black. She is gorgeous. Like Zac, you can put itty bitty kids on her and she is extremely careful with them. One of the reasons I love Trixie is that she won’t sugarcoat anything for you. She is like a mirror and anything you’re doing wrong, she lets you know about. She is very sensitive. I have tried to ride her on a day when I have a test in one of my classes later, and even when I think I’m relaxed, I’ve studied, and I’m ready – Trixie will feel deep down that I’m thinking about it. For a behavior therapy class I took last spring, I made it my project to teach her to bow. She got it incredibly quickly – did I mention she’s really smart? While I have my doubts that Zac will be around to teach my unborn children to ride, I have reserved Trixie for that spot years ahead of time. This one is a diamond in the rough.