Hello All,
Chester, our normally calm, even tempered stallion is teaching me a lot about the birds and bees. I have been working with Chester on barrels we set up to show folks in Texas Curlies can barrel race like the big quarter horses with names like Dash for Cash and Zip.
So naturally, I try to keep him calm and focused while we walk around the barrels, then we slowly trot around the barrels, and after a few weeks we begin to lope around the barrels until....the girls start winking at our man.
Our Chester sees them from a distance and forgets everything we've learned. He hears one of the sweet neighs and he responds with flared nostrils and eyes as if his entire being depends on this sound. It is especially challenging if you are in the saddle and this engagement begins. He holds his tail high in the air and begins to move closer to the girls while I try to pull him back in the pattern with all my might. He actually does a nice little sidestep but I'm not asking for a sidestep.
Knowing that our Chester is a smart fella, I decided to do the most sensible thing.....I gave the girls a chance to graze in the back pasture where he could not see nor hear them while we practiced. We are again making our rounds around the barrels. Just hope no one brings a mare with a sweet voice and twinkle in eye to the barrel racing competition next month.
How funny! I had a deja vu moment there while reading your story. My curly, Custer, back before we gelded him - I took him to a local barrel race and BOY was he the center of attention and NOT in a good way! LOL! He didn't mind me at all and tried to get to every mare in sight (there were many at the show). He acted as if I wasn't even on his back, so I eventually tied him up at the trailer, to which he tried to get away several times, pawed a hole in the ground, and whinnied until he was hoarse. Finally, after gaining everyone's undivided attention (human and equine alike) and acting like a naughty child in a grocery store, I loaded him into the trailer, but not before wrestling with him for 20 minutes to get him in! He didn't want to leave the lovely ladies he was whinnying at. I was exhausted - mentally and physically. He had NEVER acted that way before, but then I had never hauled him to a big horse show. It took that one horse show for me to realize that gelding was the answer! No problems since. Good luck with Chester! I hear if you put Vicks Vapo Rub on their muzzle, they won't smell the ladies! Try it and see if it works!
ReplyDeleteVicks Vapo Rub - how funny...thanks, I'll let ya know how it works:)
ReplyDeleteThe more you work with him the better he will be about the girls. Just try to set yourself as the alpha. I spent most of the winter riding some of the different studs at my mom's farm-Top O The Hill Farm and I reminded them that while I was working them I was the alpha mare and they need not worry about the girls. They all figured it out even the litle 4yo studs she has Salvadore and Finnegan. I also brought the senior stud Mead's Chocoalte Chip to a dressage show earlier this summer and he was a dream, everyone there thought he was a gelding he was so quiet. It sounds like your Chester will relax into things as he develps his routine and realizes when you there he doesn't need to worry about the ladies.
ReplyDeleteChester has his mind on other things because he knows he's the handsomest thing around, but it sounds like you have the right idea by starting out small and hiding his girlfriends. Have fun with your barrel racing!
ReplyDelete