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.

Day 34

It was super cold today.
We decided to give the horses a break (yeah, even though they got a two week break) and we just let them run around the indoor arena. They haven't been able to go outside since it started snowing and icing over since no one wants a horse with a broken leg. They seemed to really enjoy themselves running around and playing with each other.
Sometimes we all just need a real break, time to stretch our legs without being told what to do, and have fun.
Why not give that break to our horses as well?

Day 33

Happy New Year!
I didn't get to the stables last week. I painted my room for the first time since I was 9. I figured I was due for a new color.

Now I saw the consequences of not going out last week. Brie was fiesty and I had some difficulty getting her out of her stall. I walked her for a long time and we wrote words in the sand with her feet. Just a little trick to get her mind thinking about things other than going in circles.
I also cantered her today. She's better cantering to the right than to the left, so we'll have to work on that.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow. I have the feeling she might be a little sore in the morning so I'll have to rub some linement on her before I ride just to be safe.
Hope you're having a good start to your new year!

Day 32

First off,
Merry Christmas!
I hope everyone's holidays were great.

For Christmas, I got Brie and Nina carrots (the usual) and peppermints (the rare treat)! Brie hasn't had a peppermint in so long because of her insulin resistance that she forgot what it was and spit out the first couple before remembering how good they taste! I let my brother ride Brie first today, as a challenge to him to see how well he would do. He actually did pretty well! It was a good change of pace for Brie and myself, both of us were getting stuck in that "winter routine" rut since we're stuck indoors.
While my brother was riding, I played around with Nina. I tried my Parelli games on her, the few that I know. She's good with the Friendly Game and the Porcupine Game, but still isn't catching on to the Yo Yo game yet. It's a little frustrating when here I am at one end of the rope, waving it around like a madman while she just blankly stares at me, not knowing what to do. I'm pretty sure that's an error on my part. I really need to get around to watching the rest of those DVDs, I've only watched the first two so far. Maybe on New Year's Eve when I have nothing else to do that night I'll watch them.
When I got on Brie, I was determined not to ride around in a circle on the rail like always, and we didn't. We made serpentines, I even "rode" my name in the sand. I tried to get her to canter but that ended up in a gallop. She can't seem to get her back feet to go the same speed as her front feet when I'm trying to canter her. Thoughts on this? Suggestions? My mom's been telling me to let her gallop and then try to bring her back to a canter. She's also been telling me to use a round pen, but oh! We don't have one! Thanks, Mom.
I'm very excited for 2010. I'm confident that it will be a productive and stunning year, a year like no other with Brie. I hope that you are successful with your horse goals (and others) as well.

Day 31

Super cold today. I feel like I'm redundant when I say I'm so proud of Brie, but I shouldn't feel that way. It has taken so long for her to get to this point and I'm happy I didn't listen to everyone who told me to give up on her, that she'd never be worth anything, that she never would win anything. I have a feeling we'll have a huge success at the shows this year. I can't wait for the first show in April.

Nina is still under training. I can't picture her actually working, even though I've shown her and placed while half asleep, but that's another story. She just seems like too much of a goofball to be phased by anything, and that can be a good thing. I guess I'm just eager to see how good she is when Ray is done training. I wonder if she'll turn out to be Fino like everyone has thought, because that would end up being a true underdog story.

Day 30

The calming supplement is working really well for Brie. She was very responsive and now that I have more of a handle over her I'm working on making a more noticable differnece between her corto and largo. I have a really good feeling about this show season and I'm anxious for it to start.
I also worked with Nina today. While Ray is training her we're not supposed to be riding her, so I played Parelli games with her. I played the Friendly Game and am teaching her the Porcupine Game. I started the Yo Yo game also, but she didn't really grasp that one, so I'll focus on the Porcupine Game until she gets really good at it and then move on to the Yo Yo game.
It's so cold over here, and I'm waiting til snowfall to take some pictures of them playing.