My New Quarter-Horsey Project

May 14, 2008

Blogosphere, meet Poke. Poke is a 10-year-old, 14.3 hand (ish) quarter horse. He’s hamming it up for the camera with his mom, Lea.

Lea is somewhat new to horses, and Poke is her first equine baby. He was bought for her by a former trainer, and she hasn’t done a whole lot with him yet. I don’t know a whole lot about his history, other than that he hasn’t done much lately, used to belong to an Amish man who did some driving with him, and has decent basic training. He’s very sweet, very willing, laid-back, and pretty easy to handle. All-in-all, he’s a great first horse for Lea.

About a month ago, Lea brought Poke to live at my friends Dave and Tracie’s, the friends who own the horses I’ve been riding and for whom I pet-sit. She does a lot of groundwork with him, and has been doing a little riding.

Last night was a barn night for Dave, Tracie, Lea and another friend, and since it was a beautiful evening in here in Northeast Ohio, I had to get involved. Dave has ridden Poke to test him out, but they wanted me to hop on and see how he goes too.

Let me just say, Poke is going to be a lot of fun.

He wasn’t quite sure of me when I first swung into the saddle. He tried to walk off as I was half-way mounted. I asked him to stop and stand, and he quickly realized he needed to wait for me and stood there patiently. Once we did head out to the rail, he wanted to live up to his name and amble around as slowly as I would let him. With a little urging, he picked it up and stepped out in a more forward walk.

Even though I had been warned that he has a springy trot, I wasn’t ready for it to be so forward after his pokey (pun intended!) walk. But it was forward, springy, and completely wonderful. Poke’s trot is very similar to Penny’s, and even though it really makes you work physically, it’s a whole lot of fun. It wasn’t teeth-rattling, bone-jarring bouncy, just very lively yet smoothly springy.

His canter was more reminiscent of his walk in that it was a bit short strided.

Oh, and let me just say, Poke has the best brake of any horse I’ve ever ridden. You sit up and squeeze you rear end and boom! he’s instantly walking. It’s pretty amazing. His up transitions are pretty good too; he went into a canter with fewer than three trot strides from the trot and walk.

Much like when I started with Marahute four years ago, Poke just hasn’t gotten a lot of ring work. His basics are solid, and he just needs to learn to balance, collect, carry himself, bend, and regulate speed. He gets heavy on the forehand and is uncomfortable in the turns. But he’s fine as long as you give him lots of support. He’s smart and willing, so I’m sure it won’t take long for him to learn to carry himself.

So, Poke has officially moved higher than Marahute and Classic in the priority list. They just need exercise, but we want Poke as ready for Lea as he can be. Lea is very much into horses and wants to soak up every bit of information she possibly can about everything involved. She’s a little wary to make sure everything is correct, but does seem to have a natural knack for it. If only all new horse people were like her! Poke is a great first horse for Lea, and will be even better once we polish him up a bit.

Posted in Riding and showing, Women and Horses