Sorry guys this is going to be a long post. I am going to tell you all the story of Max, the first horse I bred and brought on myself. The reason I feel compelled to write this is because I want to know what people would do differently. Bear in mind that I had little to no experience in this situation and I was learning trial by fire. I am interested in alternatives and constructive ideas. Also could someone tell me what personality type he would fit.
OK, so I had decided that I wanted to create my own perfect horse, I had no riding horse of my own, my original pal was in retirement seeing that he was thirty yrs old. I really liked my neighbours QH stallion, he was a little short coupled and too compact for my taste though, so I decided to put him over a TB mare which I purchased primarily for this reason. She was very quiet and sweet and got pregnant very quickly. The guy who owned the stallion wanted a colt out of the match and this colt was to be the sire fee. The mare had her foal and it was a colt we decided that it was the stallion owners and I would have the next foal. This was fine as I was pregnant myself and not in a great rush. To cut a long story shorter I had a number of tragedies in my life including the death of the mare carrying my foal, the stallion owner felt sorry for me and gave me Max.
Even though Max was not mine I spent a lot of time with him in the first couple of months that he was born including catching and haltering him when he was four days old, he was only little but he fought like crazy. Most of my time was spent just watching mare and foal though and what really struck me was how naughty Max was and how much his mother put up from him. He would rear up and scissor kick her, he would bite her and would gallop past her and lash out at her, all of which she ignored. This surprised me because the other mares with foals in the area didn’t tolerate that kind of behaviour at all from what I had observed. Anyway Max was a very boisterous little colt and inclined to be cocky and cheeky. After a couple of months I reconciled myself to the fact that he wasn’t mine and didn’t really see him again till he was gifted to me when he was about a year old.
Max was a handful from the get go. I really wanted to do well by him and expand my own knowledge and horsemanship. I purchased Parelli DVD’s and books and set about getting the ground work under way. I couldn’t get it to work. I tried the porcupine game and ended up having to use a sharp stick to get him to move at all. Then once I had made him move I couldn’t get him to stop, most of my time was spent hanging on the end of my 12ft line while Max bucked and reared madly around and over me. I ended up getting a Parelli instructor who was excellent (though expensive). What really intrigued me was the level of pressure that Max forced the instructor to go to, he ended up on his back more than once as the instructor had a neat trick to dissuade Max from trying to run him over. He would drop his arm so the horses head was forced down, the instructor would step behind the horse so the rope was wrapped behind its hocks, then pull as hard as he could and Max would fall over. I would honestly never have thought of that! After three and a half hours the instructors description of Max was insolent and disrespectful. What he found most difficult was the fact that Max had a way of doing what was asked but with a real “Up yours” attitude, he would yield to pressure and then a bit more. Ask him to move his bum a step and he would have to take two. Ask him to back up and he would have to take a forward step first. I learnt a lot though about how to gain respect or so I thought.
OK, so I had decided that I wanted to create my own perfect horse, I had no riding horse of my own, my original pal was in retirement seeing that he was thirty yrs old. I really liked my neighbours QH stallion, he was a little short coupled and too compact for my taste though, so I decided to put him over a TB mare which I purchased primarily for this reason. She was very quiet and sweet and got pregnant very quickly. The guy who owned the stallion wanted a colt out of the match and this colt was to be the sire fee. The mare had her foal and it was a colt we decided that it was the stallion owners and I would have the next foal. This was fine as I was pregnant myself and not in a great rush. To cut a long story shorter I had a number of tragedies in my life including the death of the mare carrying my foal, the stallion owner felt sorry for me and gave me Max.
Even though Max was not mine I spent a lot of time with him in the first couple of months that he was born including catching and haltering him when he was four days old, he was only little but he fought like crazy. Most of my time was spent just watching mare and foal though and what really struck me was how naughty Max was and how much his mother put up from him. He would rear up and scissor kick her, he would bite her and would gallop past her and lash out at her, all of which she ignored. This surprised me because the other mares with foals in the area didn’t tolerate that kind of behaviour at all from what I had observed. Anyway Max was a very boisterous little colt and inclined to be cocky and cheeky. After a couple of months I reconciled myself to the fact that he wasn’t mine and didn’t really see him again till he was gifted to me when he was about a year old.
Max was a handful from the get go. I really wanted to do well by him and expand my own knowledge and horsemanship. I purchased Parelli DVD’s and books and set about getting the ground work under way. I couldn’t get it to work. I tried the porcupine game and ended up having to use a sharp stick to get him to move at all. Then once I had made him move I couldn’t get him to stop, most of my time was spent hanging on the end of my 12ft line while Max bucked and reared madly around and over me. I ended up getting a Parelli instructor who was excellent (though expensive). What really intrigued me was the level of pressure that Max forced the instructor to go to, he ended up on his back more than once as the instructor had a neat trick to dissuade Max from trying to run him over. He would drop his arm so the horses head was forced down, the instructor would step behind the horse so the rope was wrapped behind its hocks, then pull as hard as he could and Max would fall over. I would honestly never have thought of that! After three and a half hours the instructors description of Max was insolent and disrespectful. What he found most difficult was the fact that Max had a way of doing what was asked but with a real “Up yours” attitude, he would yield to pressure and then a bit more. Ask him to move his bum a step and he would have to take two. Ask him to back up and he would have to take a forward step first. I learnt a lot though about how to gain respect or so I thought.