Swan Necked Morgans

Any one who has ever seen two horses reunited after several days apart knows exactly what I mean when I refer to a Swan Neck. They greet each other, necks extended and curled, heads together and you stand in awe. "I wish I could get them to do that when I am riding/driving/asking them to," you say to yourself. That is what I spend endless hours trying to achieve.

The above photo is a great illustration. Leo was a fantastic Morgan gelding I worked with and he is demonstrating the Swan Neck. You just don't take a horse out of the pasture and park him in front of the camera and get that photo. It took six months of training and conditioning. It is the result of self carriage that only comes from the ability to stretch the horse to his potential. Of course, the horse must be physically capable, but he must also be physically fit.

I have shown horses with out the Swan Neck, quite successfully. But the ones who had the Swan Neck stopped the show. And everyone else. In their tracks. Because these are the horses who are awesome. Cleo, the horse at the top of this blog won Concourse d'Elegance in her first show with that lovely Swan Neck.

What inspires the horse to give the Swan Neck? I think it is equal parts fitness and adoration. If you tell a horse he is brilliant, he believes you. The more you tell him, the more brilliant he becomes. When he achieves the fitness and adoration balance, he gives you the Swan Neck. You have to be the horse he greets after a brief separation. You have to inspire the beauty.

The dullness of a conditioning curriculum is broken when you see a glimmer of the Swan Neck materializing. Then, you know: this is it. Today, Don Pecos gave me 5 minutes of Swan Neck Perfection. It was absolutely and utterly sublime. I came home from the stables a walking cloud of dust and happy as the horses rolling in it. We're on, Folks. We're on.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

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Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Where Can I Get A Horse Like That?

Pecos [from a collection of photos of Fred & Jeanne Herrick]

People often ask me this about the Cheval Morgans. Truth is: you breed them. They don't just happen. I've written here about Fleetwing, now it's time for Pecos. The New York Morgan Horse Society posted a trivia question on facebook this week featuring Don Pecos's great grand sire, so I thought it was serendipity.

Pecos [AMHA 8969] was born in 1944 and sired 104 foals. I first fell for him when I was 14 years old and saw the photo below in "The Morgan Horse In Pictures" by Margaret Cabell Self. He was 26 when this photo was taken. The caption was something like: Pecos shedding his years and clowning like a colt.

Fred Herrick trained, showed and stood Pecos at stud for many of the horse's years and has a fond place in his heart for the great stud. "He had to show off all the time," Fred recalled. Jeanne [Mellin Herrick] told me that Pecos had a lot of heart, but he could be a little ornery, at times. She said, somewhat under her breath, that was why he and Fred got along so well.

I sent Fred and Jeanne a photo of Don Pecos [who has two crosses to Pecos in his bloodlines] as a two year old and Jeanne sent me a photo of a painting she made of Pecos noting how much they resembled each other. I am honored to have such a direct link to a horse I only knew in photos, paintings and stories, but whose blood lives on in my daily life through Don Pecos.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

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Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Tulips, Driving Pairs, Iowa Horse Fair

When I got home from spending the weekend in Des Moines for the Iowa Horse Fair, I found my flower beds awash with tulips. What a welcome home. I am gazing at a vase of them on the sideboard; I can't help but feel happy.

Happiness is also driving a pair of beloved horses on a gorgeous spring day with a wonderful new friend. That was yesterday with Don Pecos, Ace and Theresa Burns. The boys were still a little too forward at the trot, but they came down and gave me a stupendous walk. Theresa and I were delighted with them. So delighted, we spent the better part of an hour just walking around the outdoor arena enjoying the pair, the weather and the company.

We also had a good chin wag about the horse fair. Everything went well: the booth looked lovely, Don Pecos and Bob were movie stars and the Body Awareness Demonstrations were well received. I got to reunite with a friend and former Jennifer Steensen Field of Dreams volunteer which was a treat. The Serendipity family was out in force, we saw old friends and made some new ones. A big thank you to everyone who helped out, I couldn't have done it [or anything for that matter] without you.

Today is another sublime day. I hope you get out to enjoy the tulips.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Freaky Ferrari: Don Pecos

Don Pecos du Cheval and Bob Nervig will help me demonstrate Body Awareness in Driving at the Iowa Horse Fair on Saturday, April 10 at 4 pm.

I had to give Don Pecos a break from whip training yesterday because half the arena was a swamp from the storm the night before. I didn't want a repeat of the injury he is just now recovered from, so I turned him loose wearing the bridle and surrcingle while I fetched a shovel and moved some sand over the rail portion of the mess. While I labored, Don Pecos warmed up. He decided to do a little trotting in his favorite small circle at the arena's center. After that, with no cues from me, he worked on his canter. I was shoveling sand, he was working on cadence. Nobody can say he doesn't have a good work ethic.

When I had moved enough sand to feel confident that he wouldn't slip in the muck if he stayed on the rail, I moved to the center of the arena and asked Don Pecos to take the rail. He was immediately nervous about having to adhere to my curriculum instead of his own [which was working very nicely, thank you] the muddy portion of the arena and the rail, where we have been practicing with the whip aides. Mind you, he was at liberty, thus could still voice his opinions.

His first opinion involved the corners. I've been using the corners to enhance the bending training. Instead of associating the procedure with whip aides, Don Pecos walks into the corner with his whole body and stops looking like he is glued into the corner. He turns his blinkered head to look at me, "This is correct, yes, Boss?" Well, yes, sort of. I guess. Working with a smart horse makes you smarter. We have a way to go with the whip aides.

Not the answer Don Pecos was looking for and he was further upset that his own training program wasn't good enough, and now his interpretation of bending was also incorrect. So he tried harder. "It must be the touching my sides thing," so when a clump of sand came out of his hoof and touched him on his side he climbed into the wall, shaking. When a gust of breeze touched his side, he took off trotting, before remembering to miter himself into the corner. I am pretty sure the same resulted when a fly lit on his side.

I was helplessly standing in the center of the arena witnessing this. The lunge whip was at my feet, as was my mouth. This horse was trying so hard to apply himself to the new training: "Look, Boss, I can do it WITHOUT the whip! Please Boss, don't touch me with the whip anymore." My freaky Ferrari is tactile defensive. I need to find a deep pressure driving whip. I guess.

We will be at the Iowa State Fairgrounds this weekend for the Iowa Horse Fair, come see us. Forget about all the gardening you want to do: it is Iowa folks, it is April. You know the snow is not done. Even though it is 70 degrees, come to the Horse Fair.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

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Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Keeping Up With Jim

My neighbor, Jim, told me he had planted lettuce, carrots, onions, radishes, and potatoes last weekend. I wanted to put out some mesclun, but was too busy with horse fair preparations. I have one of those Keeping Up With the Joneses Competitions with Jim. I have a jardin potager, Jim has two acres. I give him Asian eggplants the size of a large thumb from my garden, he gives me 3 pounders from his. I shovel my drive, Jim has a snow blower. I mow my lawn, Jim mows everyone else's lawn. I go and drink in the bars after the BRR ride [23 mile bike ride in Iowa in February]. Jim rides it. Did I mention Jim is an octogenarian? I suspect he is 132 years old.

We had a terrible hail storm last night. My truck is dimpled. I have a garage, but the horse trailer full of horse fair preparations is in front of it, so the truck got hit. Jim has a two car garage and I doubt that his always perfectly detailed truck has any hail damage. Jim was asking about the horse trailer, worried that I might be moving. I suppose I am the only neighbor who even attempts to top Jim and if I left, he wouldn't have any one to play with.

I'm glad to be worthy of the challenge of Jim. And I don't mind at all that he always bests me. In fact, I'm proud of us both.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Autism and Horse Training

Don Pecos du Cheval, the beginning of his bending 'problem': carrying his head to the left

I decided to address Don Pecos' bending 'problem' with the solution posed to me by absolutely everyone: the whip. In carriage driving the whip is an aid in lieu of leg aides as in riding. The idea is that the whip uses the whip to touch the side of the horse to encourage bending. I have been loathe to use the whip in this way with Don Pecos because his idea of the whip touching his sides is more closely attuned to sticking him with a cattle prod. Yet, I wondered, "Could everyone else be wrong?"

So, yesterday, I hitched him with the plan of only walking, encouraging him to accept the bend with a whisper from the whip. It was hot, a dry wind whipped around and the damned flies were busy tormenting us both. Don Pecos was still a little gimpy from slipping in the mud two weeks ago. Walk, walk, walk.

Yeah, right. The first time I touched him with the whip- note, I said touched, not clobbered, not lashed, not whipped- touched, he jumped out of his skin and took off trotting like a Saddlebred. The second, third and fiftieth time I touched him with the whip was the same. I spent an hour and a half trying to get him to walk, accept the aid and calm down. In the end, he kind of moved over, kind of walked and so I quit, ready to cry.

I thought about my post about Dashiell and Autism. It seemed so wrong to impose my world on Don Pecos when he was just trying to get by without any fuss, just doing the wrong job because that was what we were telling him to do, albeit inadvertently. I thought about how painful it is for Dashiell when the world changes its mind and its agenda. That is exactly how Don Pecos was reacting to the whip.

I know the whip is an important aid. I rarely use it, and as a result, I had a frightened, fire breathing locomotive in my hands yesterday. I will have to try again today and I'm dreading it. Some times horse training sucks. I guess this is what my sister feels about being a mother to her precious boy. So, as she's taught me, I'll do what I have to with empathy and great love and hope everyone else is right about the solution.

Kind Regards,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.

Adega: The Cure For Everything

Adega on Ace

My nephew, Dashiell said the word "adega" as a toddler. Everything was adega. It was a wonderful word: a noun, a verb, an adjective. I used to wonder what he meant, I longed to understand adega. Dashiell is five now and does all those adorable things fivers do: he loves to read, thinks he should be allowed to drive the car, sees school as a prison sentence, would rather play outside all day, etc. But he also does things other five year olds don't and last year he was diagnosed with Autism. But even more heart breaking: he's given up trying to make us understand adega.

Dashiell is a wonderful little boy who delights us all with his wit and strange, fantastic world, so different to our own. Sometimes I despair that he is required to live in our world, because it seems so flawed in comparison to Dashiell's. Our world often causes him so much pain. Dashiell's world is filled with dancing particles of light. It is just so unfair.

April is Autism Awareness Month. Dashiell is not my only connection to Autism. Over the years I have worked with many children and a few adults with Autism in therapeutic riding and I've seen some extraordinary things along the way. Horses seem to understand Autismland and forge strong diplomatic ties with it's inhabitants. I have been honored to be a witness to this. So, I celebrate Autism Awareness Month.

If I can share any accidental sagacity with this it would be: Autism is not the disability; our lack of understanding of our own world is. If we decided that imposing our views of what is right or normal was the disability, we would be free to visit Autismland and also witness its wonder.

Adega,

Michelle Blackler

Serendipity

www.hossbiz.com

Serendipity is an Accidental Sagacity Corporation company.