The Paso Fino Encyclopedia post is here!

That's right! Everything you've ever wanted to know about Paso Finos has been delivered to you, as promised. Just scroll down the left side of my blog or click here. It's complete with pictures and videos!

Equestrian Team Day 11

We haven't had lessons for two weeks. It depresses me. Our lesson coordinator is a little overwhelmed, but there is hope. You know why?

Because I'm the new lesson coordinator!!

Yup, I'm gonna be scheduling everything for the next year. I'm so excited for it, I really want to prove how good of I job I can do that way I can run for president of the team.

Today I rode another new horse (for me). His name is General. Apparently, he's for the more experienced type (yesssss). He was really fun. He was such an easy ride, such light contact was necessary. He did want to break into a canter after we cantered around the first time, but I managed it. When our instructor asked us our summer plans, I replied "I'll be training horses". She then remembered that I have Paso Finos and replied "Well you'll be going back with a better seat!"

Uhm. About that. I think it's a little funny sometimes when people comment on Paso Finos because they're so different than other breeds. You don't even have to concentrate on a good seat, you just have one. You don't have to check your diagonal because there is none! You can spend all your time devoted to making sure your heels are down and that the horse is behaving. It's basically a no-brainer ride---until you get to the brio, the spirit of the horse. If I ever am a riding instructor, I will make all of my students, at one point or another, ride a Paso Fino. Then they can tackle anything that comes their way!

In short, I had a great ride. She complimented my improved seat on the canter and I got my diagonals right 75% of the time! Improvement!! I'm stoked for the summer when I can get more lessons and hopefully show so I can start off at a higher level in IHSA in the fall.

Speaking of showing....we're not going to the Springfield show this weekend anymore. After Paco informed us that we would need to be taking our own hay, grain, and bedding, we remembered how horrible the show was last year, how no one showed up, and how Randy won pretty much everything. So we're going to spend these next two weeks (since we're not going to Spectrum either) to work with Nina on her head-shy business.

I'm looking forward to the weekend so badly. Until then, happy trails!

Sweet Girl

A nursery of foals running around in the pasture, wobbly on their new legs.
This is how I first met Dulce Nina, who we just call Nina for short. I met her as a foal one weekend, she had been born during the middle of that week. Not really standing out from the lot, my brother and I just enjoyed watching them play because they were so adorable.
We never took particular notice to Nina until she was kept in the stall over the winter because she had an eye infection. More like 'Shy Girl' instead of 'Sweet Girl', she stood facing the corner, refusing to look at us, no matter how hard we tried to lure her out. Once she was released from the infirmary, she was let back outside to grow.

We never really planned on getting another horse. It just came spontaneously. When we heard that Lorraine wanted to sell the barn and auction off all of the horses, we asked Andre which one of the babies was the best. At the time, it was down to three babies: Obrero, Futuro, and Dulce Nina. He said that out of them, Nina had the most potential other than his own baby, Elegante, that he recently bought from Lorraine at the auction at Nationals that fall.
Auction day was a blur. We walked in to find a crowd of people seated on hay bales in the arena; all the horses were lined up and wearing numbers on their flanks. My brother and I approached Nina in her stall and my brother promised her that he would buy her. A whirlwind of bids later, we were the proud owners of Dulce Nina. My brother and I rejoiced and took about a million pictures of our new family member. Nina was just over a year old.
So now we have this baby horse. What do we do with her? The first step we made was desensitizing her. We worked on our bond with her, my brother connecting with her the most. Andre suggested that we do Bella Forma with her. Bella Forma is a class in shows where you have either one or two people and you walk the filly or colt around the arena to show her or his gait. It's kind of like a dog show, only with a horse. The first year we competed with her, my mom was by herself with Nina because Nina was still little. As Nina grew, she went on double lines and my brother joined in. We won a few classes, I believe we qualified for Nationals, but we decided not to go.
This past year was Nina's first year competing under saddle. We did well, but not as well as we would have liked to. Andre told us that she had a lot of potential and was even turning out better than Elegante. He told us that we had a pretty good Fino horse on our hands and we were thrilled. What luck we had to have a Fino horse bought at an auction! But something went wrong, and Nina became angry and unwilling to work. We thought, maybe Andre was over working her? But none the less, she flat out stopped in the middle of the sound board when we were competing in Kentucky this past year. She became angry and wanted nothing to do with us anymore. Shortly after that, we stopped training, and after that, Andre was fired from our current stable.
Now Nina is getting down to work. After having quite a few months off to play, bond even more with Brie, and not do really anything, she is very eager to learn under Ray. Ray tells us that at the least, we will have a very high quality performance horse, but that he doesn't want to make any promises about whether she is Fino or not. We're all very eager to see how she turns out, but she has now grown into her name none the less. She is certainly a sweet girl.

Harry Potter (or rather, Harry Gardener)

A nicker, a whinny, and a look that you can't really see underneath all that hair. This is how Jardinero greets us as we walk in.
My parents just bought Jardinero, who we lovingly call Harry, on Valentine's Day. It was technically a present from my dad to my mom, but I think my dad wanted him for himself.
We first met Harry when Andre was still around and we were up at our last stable. Known to us then as Ghandi, he peaked my brother and my curiosity because of his gorgeously long hair. We'd only seen a mane that long on a horse in pictures! It was a huge difference from Brie's short mane and Nina's average locks. He'd stand by the gait watching us ride Brie and run around with Nina and we'd always braid his forelock before we left or style his forelock into an Elvis-style pompadour.
There's much to learn about Harry and much to work with. A young horse, only 5 years old and a year older than Nina at this time, he has a fear of one corner of the arena, has only been showed once, and already has gotten into a hay-trailer accident. He even bolted at a show once when someone tried to test him out in the aisle, which was a stupid idea to begin with. That's not to say that he's bitter about everything that's happened to him. He rivals Nina in the affection department. He's just a young horse that needs patience and understanding, like all horses.
He has a vast amount of potential. He might even rival Nina in that department as well. At the very least, he'll be an outstanding performance horse. At the best, he'll be an exceptional fino horse. Only time will tell and I'm looking forward to sharing show tales.

Brilliance

Brilliance. An intense brightness of light.
This is an odd name choice for a black horse.

Brillante - Brilliance in English - is my black Paso Fino mare. For 5 years, I've bonded with this perplexing animal with a mind like no other I've come across. She's earned a reputation wherever she goes as "the crazy horse", but she will never miss a beat (a quality all Pasos want!) and will take care of kids.
She's been excused from show arenas for stopping and refusing to move, even when *sniff* I had to kick her. She's been placed last because she tried to run over a judge (you'd think we'd get excused for that too, right?). She's reared, almost kicked me in the chest, bucked plenty of times, and I love her to death. Why? Because I finally understand her.

It was at the point where my trainer, Andre, had given up on her. She was just "not a show horse, but would make a good trail horse". Hardly. She hates being away from the barn, a result of being acutely barn-sour. So, after a clinic with famous Dominic, I learned that she's just a very anxious soul, and like a human, needs to be dealt with in the appropriate way.

This all happened before I started this blog by the way.

Dominic told me that I should spend at least a half hour making her walk around, for at least a few months, and make this routine until I can feel her relaxed under me. I was vigilant about this, and come the show season...well we got excused from a couple of classes, but not as many as I expected! She's been doing really well with everything I've asked of her because I've taken the time to try to understand her, not to just force her into doing what I want her to, because oh boy, will she fight back.

And yet, despite all of my efforts, people still refer to her as "the crazy horse" which isn't exactly fair. Especially since I took third place at the last show of the season.

And still, despite these efforts, my parents still want to hire a trainer, a TRAINER! A "professional predator", someone who won't take the time to understand her mind and just throw a harsher bit in her mouth, tie her head down, and put on the spurs.
I won't allow that to happen.

My goal with Brie, the entire reason I'm writing this blog, is to get a blue ribbon, a first place, in a class of at least 10 horses. Only then will she show her true brilliance.

Brillante - A History

I realized that I never really went fully into detail about my horses. I'll start off with Brillante since we've had her longer. Her nickname's Brie, and that's what I've been calling her throughout all of my posts.
I got Brillante when I was in 7th grade. I was not too thrilled about her. I was never the girl that asked for a horse on her Christmas list (I always asked for a cat), and I was under pressure because I was trying to get into one of the most prestigious selective enrollment schools in Chicago. How could I focus on school when I was trying to take care of a horse?!

Anyways, we found Brie by accident at a horse fair up in Northern Illinois. We were already looking into share-boarding a horse in a place I can only describe as "the middle of nowhere" because I can't recall where it was. My mom was looking for hunter/jumper horses, just to see if she could convince my dad to buy one, but as we watched the breed demonstration, my dad was immediately smitten with Brie and sought her out right after she left the arena. Just a three year-old, everyone told us not to buy her, she was too "green", she'd hurt us kids (my brother and I). But my dad was sold on the idea of his horse and his kids growing up together (and keeping us out of the malls doing absolutely nothing on Saturday afternoons).

So now we have this horse. What do we do with her? And what the heck is a Paso Fino? Why did we buy this instead of an Arabian? Completely dazed and confused, my mom attempted to implement the methods of training Arabians she learned when she was a youngster, mucking stalls in return for one 30 minute lesson. Brie wasn't loving that too much, until one day, the trainer (who we originally mistook for the owner), our beloved Andre, asked us "What the heck are you doing? And why do you have that 50 ft rope?!" He rode Brie for us, like he did in the horse fest, and we wanted him to train. To make a long story short, the real owner of the stable we were at wanted Andre exclusively for himself and we had to leave to another stable.

Without naming names, that new stable was a DUMP. But we had to stay there since it was close to Andre's house and he had to do something with Brillante and teach us what to do with her since we had no clue. What turned out to be a 3 month deal turned into a long-lasting (until recently) friendship that remained even when things went completely downhill with the stable. In retrospect, we did a lot of stupid things with Brie that could have gotten us killed. For example, I remained on her after a day of full-on rears (which is actually kind of impressive). We started looking for new places when Brie's sweet demeanor turned nasty and she became extremely head-shy. The final straw? We up and left one day after we walked in only to find huge bite marks along Brie's neck line and chest. We still don't know what they were to this day (rats? a wasp? cigarette burns?).

Off we went to our third stable where another trainer was, Juan. We didn't hire him because by then we thought we knew enough to work with Brie on our own, and we did fairly well. Time at this stable is really a blur, and all I remember is that Paco worked there (that's where we met him) and that the owners of the stable we're currently at were there as Juan's clients. Things were okay for a while, then immediately went downhill and we left back to where we started, the stable where Brie was born up in Northern Illinois.

Things were peaceful, quiet. The place was really beautiful, light and airy. It was more rustic and beautiful that I remembered. While back at her "home", Brie had an encounter with laminitis. We caught it early enough, thankfully, and Andre was living on the property so he was there to give her medication everyday. It was then that we found out that Brie is insulin resistant and can't be getting apples everytime we go out or a multitude of cookies or an excess of grain. There was no rotation and we really lucked out with that one, and now we're vigilant about her weight and what she eats.
Aside from the chill in the winter, it was paradise. But since the owner died and his wife was too depressed by running the business without him, so she sold it, and we packed up and left to the stable we're currently at.

So this ended up being a not-so-short history of Brie's moves and medical condition. I was going to post more about her attitude and things I'm trying to work with her on but I'll save that for another post, coming soon.