Little (long) update and Stacy Westfall

I think I found Mag's 7 under his slowly shedding Winter coat. I don't understand why you'd give a horse a brand that is impossible to see half the year. Hm! Did you know I jokingly call him "# 3007"? He was the 3007th foal born at Michalow. Seven is also a good name, also Star Trek related. As soon as it's not a suggestion of a 7, but a real 7, I'll take a photo for you (like I did his 14).

I'm getting more confident about trimming his hooves and messing with them in general. He hasn't been twitchy about his feet lately, and if he takes one away from me, I try not to get offended, I just look at him and say, "OK can I have it back now?" I think doing TTEAM circles is a really great way to get them compliant about their feet, the circles are strange but also relieve tension. Funny how one direction is easier than the other (clockwise).


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It's been Easter break and I've been having fun with J (geocaching) so I haven't done as much with Mag lately but that will change next week. Also, it has rained every single day except Easter Saturday) since we got our wood chips. They are quickly disappearing and I'm replenishing them from Mt Wood, but J suggested today we buy even more of them. I said a never ending supply might be a good idea.


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But yesterday I put a bit in Mag's mouth the first time (since Haegerhof) and I thought it would be fun to warm it first and then put some honey on it. It wasn't fun, it was hilarious though. As soon as the honey touched his lips he shouted, "Get it off, get it OFF!" and frantically rubbed his nose on the wall. Can honey really taste so bad? I patiently held the bit there against his tiny, baby teeth (how cute, such tiny teeth!) and he eventually took it but then wanted to get the honey out of his mouth ASAP. OK since corn syrup doesn't exist here, I will just hold a treat behind the bit as I offer it to him, I like that method of teaching them to take bits happily. He probably doesn't need it though. BTW, Mag has not had a single treat for about 2 weeks now, since nipping both J and his sister. If Mag's not around, I give them to Bellis, because she's never rude about them.


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J showed me a documentary about how they color eggs in Germany. Truly and for real, they use food-sourced colors - red cabbage for blue, beets for red, spinach for green, etc. I wouldn't have believed it but I saw it on a documentary, and that's pretty much the consensus when I ask people. The neighbors where we had the Easter fire, they said they color eggs with onion rinds. She proudly showed me her colored eggs and they were fantastically ....brown. I whipped out my food coloring pack and showed J the way Americans do it *lol*

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I got an email from J's sister because I'd asked her to let me know what the owners of the Icelandic say about her opinion about the pasterns. I have shopped a lot, a lot, a lot, but I haven't heard this one before.

They said they are unwilling to sell the horse to her, that she's not "ready" for the risks one might incur owning a horse. WTH!!!! *LOL* If only they knew how much effort she's given, learning as much as she can, for years now, and leasing, and lessons, and if only they knew how gentle she is, how consistently unruffled she is around horses. S expects the best from a horse, and usually gets that. And she's old enough now, she told me, to not be foolhardy. It blows the mind, what sellers will say to buyers' signs of hesitation. Onward, she's looking in other places for an Icelandic.

Do you know what I read about Icelandics recently? That they lived in isolation from natural predators for so much longer than other breeds, they have very little flight instinct left. Can that be true? How long have Welsh ponies lived without natural predators? Shetland ponies?  Haflingers!? There are no natural horse predators in Europe anymore. In America yes, but does that influence temperament of American breeds? Arabians come from Syria, are there lions there that hunt horses like the mountain lions in America? Is this a feasible argument?


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I also read recently that the only reason we can train horses (relatively easily) is because they are social animals with strict, clear social rules. Zebras do not have this, supposedly, so they're less trainable. I wonder where the donkey lies on this spectrum. I wonder if zebras are as smart as donkeys, but have less stringent social rules, so they are nearly impossible to tame.


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Stacy Westfall said horses that are socialized in herds learn their primary, first language, "horse" from each other, and when we take them and attempt to teach them "human" (and with NH, that means trying to use what we know of "horse" to our advantage), they can easily pick up their second language. A horse, such as a stallion isolated, might not have a first language, so trying to teach it a second, is much more of a challenge. I hadn't thought about that before. Horses that live by a rule system in a herd, can pick up human rule systems so much easier.

(Learning German, if you would like to know, has never been easy, even with the first language I was born with. It's the most difficult thing I've ever done, and I still fail daily. But I'm comforted by the knowledge that I sound cute to them.)


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Recently I've been very impressed with Stacy Westfall. She seems to be taking the right path to high performance in her (reining) horses (and I'm not a reining fan at all). She doesn't seem to do that yank and crank thing.

I must share with you a training series she put on YouTube of the last foal of her famous mare Roxy, who you all know, I'm sure, because of her championship ride bareback and bridle-less.  Her colt is 2 years old, and Stacy decided to show all of us how she starts an unhandled horse from the beginning to the advanced stages of reining (which I never watched because it's reining). But the first 20 episodes are so awesome, IMO.

In the first episode (click Show More for summaries of each lesson), she simply lets him go and evaluates his nervousness or courage in a new place. It was cool to see, and she is always talking us through each episode, telling us what the horse is thinking, in case it isn't clear. She has a real gift for reading horses. And that horse can move! He moves fully through his hocks.

As she progresses, she moves through "mistakes" on both their parts, and the harmony between them grows, and for the longest time she never even pets him, because he's a mouthy stallion. I was sad to see the first time she let someone else ride him, the guy (her husband) immediately yanked on the colt's face. I believe that was the colt's first encounter with that. : (

Like Mag, the colt wants to keep her on one side of him, looking at her through that eye, and she has to work him through that. He's a gorgeous little thing, with Arab ears and Haflinger hair, and a back almost too short for a saddle. 

I loved how she admits, "He was purposefully bred to be lazy." I've never heard a QH person admit such a thing, and admire her for her honesty. Yah, that colt really prefers to stand still, how nice it would be.....: ) The colt's famous mother and father had both died so they show an episode where they take him to be collected in case someday he's gelded.

My favorite episode is #12, where she turns the young stallion out with her herd leader gelding. I have never seen such a clear display of the NH philosophy, "The one who moves his feet is submissive." Wow that gelding just stands there. And stands there. And then very gently punishes the colt for offensive behavior. It's wild!

As she trains the colt, she often refers to her own experiences raising children, and it really makes sense.

Are you interested? I'm not even into reining but to see someone go through every single lesson, recording each time how many hours they've been at it, it's fascinating. She breaks into tears a couple times looking at him and remembering his mother.

Here is a link to the entire series, but you can also watch them individually. Please let me know if that link works.

Hopefully someone out there will find it as interesting as I did. If you can let me know in the comments more about Mrs Westfall, I'd appreciate it. I don't know much, only what I have seen here.


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Sorry no pictures lately, so here is one from 1999 of me and Baasha at Aarene's barn, eating yummy pears off the ground.



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Update - just now I went out there with my softest brush and brushed a little on Mag's face, and then reached over the stall divider and rubbed it deep into Bellis' ears, something she loves. She eventually moved over so I'd brush her tail zone, the best ever, and I kept at it.

Mag very slowly reached his head over and put his chin on my shoulder and breathed into my face, and nuzzled me very gently. I breathed back and brushed his face a few swipes, telling him how grand he is. Then I returned to Bellis scrubbing and he joined me.

He reached over as well and started biting and chewing her along her spine, so she was getting a double massage. What a happy day for Bellis.

And for me, I can't stop smiling.