Our New Baby

Our New Baby

There has been a lot of criticism about the internet and social media, and I am sure much of it is true, but it does have one great benefit--it makes it easy to shop for horses.  Years ago, when Ellen and I first got started with horses, it was so much different.  The first thing we would do is buy a copy of The Trading Times and turn to the horse classifieds.  It involved making phone calls, asking questions and then going out to see the horses without even seeing a photograph--let alone a video.  We only saw ads for horses in our general vicinity, too.  As it turned out, we found out about Ranger and Cruiser through word of mouth.

Now, we have the whole world at our fingertips.  Cole was from Indiana, Dante was from West Virginia and Trifecta came from Pennsylvania.  The internet revolutionized horse shopping, that is for sure.

Ellen and I had been talking about getting another 2-year-old for at least a year.  The plan is that I would own and train him and several years later give him to Ellen.  It was a win-win plan for both of us.  I love to train and she would get a horse trained just the way she likes and be a part of the whole process.

Now, we just needed the horse.

Of course, he would have to be another Morgan.

We prefer the older, traditional style Morgan, and those aren't as easy to find as the modern showy Morgans.  The modern Morgans are lovely horses, too, but we really like the older ones better.  We have been monitoring social media and sales pages for months, now.  Ironically, we found a horse that wasn't likely to be listed on either one because he is Amish.  Fortunately, his neighbor owns the colt's father and helped out by posting an old picture of him on her page to help sell him.  The yearling pictures were intriguing, and she also posted a picture of his full sister at 2 years old, too.  She was a very lovely horse.

What was a really wonderful surprise was that he was just 2 hours away in Pennsylvania!

After discussing it with Ellen, we decided to contact the woman who listed the colt.  She got us some current videos and photos which showed us he was a very lovely horse with a lot of potential.  The colt's father, B. A. M. Double Up Hoosier, is also an outstanding horse.  I asked for a phone number of the owner, and after a long conversation with him, I decided we had to see him.  He told me he just started him in harness and has driven him on the trails on his farm.  The young fellow is smart, kind and doesn't spook at anything.

Ellen, Kevin, John, (Ellen's boyfriend) and I piled up into Kevin's car and drove on out to PA.  GPS said the last 2 miles were on a gravel road, but it was more like a one-lane mud road.  Just where were we going?  We knew his home was on the left side of the road and just as GPS told us to turn, we saw him!  Or at least we hoped it was him.  There was a youngish liver chestnut colt with a star trotting about, and he looked great.

It was him!  We met the owner, and he brought him out to show us.  He looked great and stood quietly.  I had Kevin lead him around.  When he tried to go and look at some yearlings in a pasture, Kevin was able to gently guide him away.  Next, I had Ellen lead him around.  She only hesitated for a second before she took the lead rope and walked him in a circle--something she wouldn't do with Trifecta, the feral one, for weeks.  Next it was my turn.  I was so impressed with his manners.  He was nearly 2, so he was only a few weeks older than Trifecta when I got him, so there was no getting around comparing them.  Trifecta really was feral--a very friendly feral.  This guy didn't have the puny, under-developed look of Tri, either.  He was taller and more substantial with better legs.  (Trifecta's legs improved a lot as he grew--he was just at a very bad stage.)  The owner was confident that he would mature at 15 hands or more--plenty big for me.  Tri passed 15 hands, and I struggle with mounting from the ground--though I am getting better.

I knew he would be a great horse for us in just a couple of minutes.  Ellen said she really liked him, too.  Kevin thought he was beautiful.  John was taking pictures of the dog...

We made a good deal.  I paid asking price, but he will geld and deliver him at no additional cost.  It will probably be a few weeks.

The owner showed us his really cool setup for making his honey.  He produces about 50 barrels a year!  He also grows hay and corn, has 30+Morgans with 11 foals expected this spring, and raises wild boars, cows and deer.  He trains horses and is a farrier, too--a very busy man.  He had to go to pick up a trailer he bought, but he pointed up the driveway to get to the top of the hill where the boars and deer were and told us we were welcome to go walk up and take a look.  

As we walked up the hill, we got to see more Morgans, and they were so pretty.  At the top, there was a large pasture filled with countless wild boars running around, and we are talking the real thing--razor-back hogs--and they looked mean.  The deer were way in the back of their pasture, so we didn't see them well.  The little piglets were cute.  John was taking pictures of the pigs...

It will be a few weeks before we get him.  He has to be gelded and then heal from the gelding, first.  We are all very excited as we embark on this new adventure.  And of course, I will be writing all about it.

The question of what we should call him was a real problem.  His name is Rocky Run Luckystar, and he was called Star.  Star just won't work because Kevin's horse is named Starry.  We can't use Rocky because that is our brother's name, and we didn't really like Lucky.  I gave Ellen the challenge of finding names.  She suggested so many names that just didn't quite suit him.  The next morning, she asked how I liked the name Henry.  It was perfect.  Kevin liked it too, so that is what we plan to call him.  

Look Who is Joining Our Family

 Look Who is Joining Our Family

Virtual Tevis Cup

 Once again, Ellen and I are riding in the Virtual Tevis Cup.  I lost track of how many times we have done it, but I have plenty of t-shirts from it.  I guess I just need to count the t-shirts.  It is great fun.  We have 100 days to ride 100 miles.  Usually we have no trouble doing it and finish about half way through the competition.  Last year was a challenge, as Cole had that very bad colic when we had around 20 miles to go.  I wasn’t sure if he would survive, let alone finish the competition, but he survived and we did finish it.

Anyone wanting to join us can sign up at the link below.  I started a group called the Cleveland MetroParks Riders, so you can join it–even if you don’t ride here, you can join it.  All proceeds go to maintaining the Tevis trail in California, so it is for a good cause.

https://runsignup.com/Race/CA/Auburn/TevisCup?raceRefCode=4dFVBZec

The Future

This weekend, Ellen and I are going to look at a horse to possibly buy.  He is a 2-year-old Morgan–fondation breeding.  He will be my horse to train, and someday, if Ellen wants him, I will give him to her.  It is a big decision to get another horse–a lot of time and a lot of money, but we are only young once, and we already passed that up.  If I want to train another horse, I want to do it before I get too old to take the risks.  I do so love the training…

This horse really looks like a good one.  Not only is he handsome, but we have been told that he is smart, friendly and barely spooks at anything.  If it works out, I will tell you all about him.

Fairy Floss in the News

The paper published an article I wrote about my cat, Fairy Floss.  They also published it online.  Here is the link:

https://www.cleveland.com/community/2026/03/one-love-leads-to-another-send-us-your-pet-stories.html

She is doing great and has become my constant companion when I am at home.  Wherever I am at, she is close by.  Since she is an older, low-energy cat, much of the time is spent sleeping near me, but I don’t mind.  It is just nice to reach over and pet her.

Spring at Last

Spring at Last!

It has been such a long winter.  When we could get on the trail or just the hill leading to the river, I took my "Ace Number One" trail horse, Cole.  I just worked with Trifecta in the arena.  Of all the horses I have ever had, he is the horse that I enjoy arena riding with the most.  He barely spooks, (unlike Cole, Cruiser and Ranger,) doesn't go too slow, (unlike Mingo and Dante,) doesn't go too fast, (unlike Cruiser and Cole,) and seldom does anything dangerous like bolting, (unlike Cruiser and Cole.)  We do have problems and frustrations, but working them out and succeeding is one of the joys of training.  I have also been able to ride him outside a lot in the last month or so.  Our current barn has a very large outdoor arena with all-weather footing and great drainage.  Mud is minimal in this muddy time of year.  

Still, as much as I enjoy riding him in the indoor and outdoor arenas, I am starting to get excited about trail riding with him again.  We have only been able to cross the river the last few weeks.  I have been taking Cole out with Kevin and Starry.  Ellen is still not ready to cross in her head, but I think it will be soon.  And then it will be time for Trifecta.

We have been reviewing the "Bus Stop Game."  That is where I take him to the end of the driveway, and we watch the cars go by.  Sometimes, we will cross the street, walk to the next house, cross the street and come back home.  The first day I did that, he was horrible when a car came by, and it discouraged me.  Since then, though, he has been better.  We don't get a lot of cars when we ride to the trail, and it isn't that far of a ride on the street, but we get enough to make it important that our horses are traffic safe.

Ellen often does this with Dante, too.  It is a running joke with us about the driver's reactions to Trifecta versus Dante.  With Trifecta'as dazzling blond mane and tail and naturally higher head carriage, we get a lot of people slowing down to look at him and waving.  Dante--none at all.  Of course, any knowledgeable horse person can recognize how beautiful Dante is, but the general public doesn't know any better and they go all ga-ga over Trifecta.

On one of the warmer days that we had, I decided to lead Tri down to the river.  Ellen stayed up at the barn so she could ride Dante without Trifecta distracting him.  (One of my most difficult challenges with the little guy is keeping him away from the other horses--particularly his best friend, Dante.)  

My biggest problem with Trifecta is that he gets just so very excited about going down the trail.  He just loves it so much.  He walks fast, his head is up--looking all around and he is so fascinated about everything.  All of our horses seem to like to go down the trail, but Trifecta takes it to a whole new level.  After a break of many months, I wasn't sure of what to expect from him.  I remember that last spring, he was pretty bad the first few trips.

He marched down the driveway with much enthusiasm, as always.  My goal was to try to make it as calm an experience as I could.  We stopped at the end of the driveway and waited for a few cars to pass to review traffic, but there weren't any.  After a minute of standing we proceeded down the street.  We only made it a couple of driveways when I saw a car approaching from the front.  I decided to stop him in that driveway so we could watch.  As it passed, I heard a car coming from behind, so we just stayed put.  Once that one passed, I asked him to walk, and he jumped up into the air with glee.  We call it "The Lambert Leap."  Dante, the full Lambert Morgan, does it all the time on his transitions when he is excited.  Trifecta is only half Lambert, so it only happens half the time.  

After that one expression of his emotions, he then walked steadily to the trail, so I clicked and treated him.  That is one of the great things about having a clicker trained horse.  Once you get the behavior you want, you can easily show your horse that that is the best behavior.  The hard part is getting the right behavior to start with.  Ellen and I have taught our horses the command to put their head down and walk forward on a lead rope and in the saddle.  (It backfired with Cole when he morphed the command into doing his silly walk, but it still does settle him down.)

Once we got to the trail, I worked on head down, walk and whoa.  We stopped a lot just so Tri could look around.  Without all the leaves off the trees, he could see everything, such as the traffic and people on the other side of the river and all the birds and squirrels.  I clicked him for his stops and for walking like a gentleman.  Sometimes he got a bit too fast, but he did remember our big training success from last year, "control."

For a long time, he had a very hard time just walking down the 2 very steep sections of the hill.  He would rush down, out of control.  Ellen, who was usually walking next to me, had the idea to use hand signals showing slow, careful steps and saying the word, "control."  After he started to understand that, I would ride down the slopes without her and just say the word, and after a while it worked.  He learned to control his feet down the slopes instead of letting gravity take over.  I am pleased to say, he did very well on the slopes with his control command.  To make it easier for him to succeed, I did stop him and re-start 3 times on the first slope and twice on the second to break any momentum he may have been building up.

Once we got to the bottom of the hill, I just let him stand for the longest time to look at things and settle down.  

He has always done better going back up the hill than going down the hill, so I knew the biggest challenges were over when we turned around to go home.  A few times he walked too fast for me to keep up and a couple times he tried a slow trot.  I stopped him a lot to let me catch up, catch my breath and to encourage him to settle down.  The trip up was very uneventful, and for that matter, so was the trip down.  I just took my time and rewarded him with clicks for doing the right thing.  When we got to the street, I let him stand for a while to watch traffic.  There was a truck with a small trailer that had some odd machine on it that caused him to take a couple uneasy steps, but he settled down right away after it, and that is important.  There were no cars on our walk back to the barn, and he went steadily with his head at a normal level--and of course he got some clicks for it.

Whenever we do something new or review something old like this, I do do a lot of clicking and treating, but I fade it off and replace it with verbal praise and neck rubs--with intermittent clicks and clicks when he does super great.  I find clicker training to be the best way to communicate to him when he is doing what I want.  The hard part is often just getting that first correct behavior, and with Trifecta, it is often overruled by his general enthusiasm.

But he is a good horse, and when I can bring that good horse out, he is a real joy to ride.  Trifecta has the potential to become an outstanding trail horse.  Time will tell...

Everything

 Everything

It has been a very long, cold and snowy winter.  It started way back in November this year.  The river froze early and stayed that way for months.  When it finally thawed, it washed up a huge pile of ice blocks on our trail that leads to our river crossing; making it impossible to cross.  It took weeks for it to melt.  When it finally did, Kevin and I planned our first trail ride--only to find that the hurricane force winds we had the day before knocked 3 trees down across the trail on the hill leading to the river.  

A few days later, on St Patrick's Day, my sister and I met at the barn for our morning ride.  We decided to ride in the indoor arena since it was very cold.  I had Cole saddled up first, and I brought him into the arena, while Ellen was finishing up saddling Dante in his stall.  I ride English, so I was running down my stirrups when I heard an enormous bang.  My first instinct was to grab Cole's reins.  He is a great horse that doesn't need to be held while I mess around with the saddle, but this was too much for even him.

He handled it well--just pranced in a circle around me and stopped and listened.  It was so loud that the walls shook.  Ellen rushed into the arena and asked me what the noise was.  I told her I didn't know, but it was still going on.  The first big was followed by a series of smaller bangs that faded off after probably 30 seconds.

We were both perplexed.  Ellen went outside and looked around but saw nothing.  We decided to ride--hoping that whatever it was wouldn't repeat itself.  I wondered if it was an airplane exploding since we are right in the flight path and very close to the airport, but in just a few minutes we could hear the planes going overhead.  Than we thought it could have been an earthquake since the barn was shaking, but would an earthquake make such a loud noise?

I asked her what Dante did, and she said, "Nothing."  While it was going on, I didn't think to look and see how the other horses in the stalls alongside the perimeter of arena were doing.  Cole settled down so quickly, himself, that I wondered it this had happened before.

We had a nice ride.  When it was over, Ellen got a text from her boyfriend saying that it was a meteorite.  Later reports said that it was a 7 ton asteroid that crashed into our atmosphere at 45 mph and broke into pieces.  It unleashed the energy of 250 tons of TNT.  We weren't far at all from its path, so we got the full force of the sound.  I wish we could have seen it, too.  They say it was a once in a lifetime event, so no, the horses never experienced it before.  Maybe they handled it so well because, like us, they just didn't understand it.  Or maybe they are just good horses.

The whole thing was quite a cool event.

Over the years, Ellen and I have experienced so many crazy things.  There have been countless trees that have fallen close to us--one right next to us.  We have both experience car crashes by the trail, too.  People have brought strange things on the trails.  Canoes and kayaks in the river really confuse the horses.  We've been attacked by geese.  All sorts of things.  Well now, we can say that we have experienced everything.