TOA Blog Hop 2: Making of the Horse

Admittedly, this post is two weeks late. Oops.

Beka from The Owl Approves is hosting an 18 week blog hop, one for every week until her horse’s 18th birthday! I have made it my mission to participate in all 18 hops, so bring it on.

Week two focuses on the making of our horses, asking “Who trained your horse? Is your ponykins still in the process of figuring out this whole monkey-on-my-back thing, did you send off for thirty or sixty or ninety days, or did you buy a horse with all the bells and whistles? Who has helped your horse become what he or she is today?”

As I sort of explained in week one, Ax’s past history and training is very cloudy. I know that he had some sort of training down south and then some more once M brought him to New England with G and a few others. Somewhere along the way, he had a rough patch of refusals and was sent out to G for some training and that is as much as I know. So I guess the safest place to start would be beginning with when I purchased him.

Ax came to me as a hunter who had also done some 3′ adult medals, but had some jumping issues once the fences went up in height. Although there was nothing wrong with his flatwork, the dressage rider in me wanted a little more from him and for him to use his haunches. So for the first year after purchasing him I stuck to flat work with a tiny bit of jumping every now and then. With the help of my mother, barn friends, my coaches at school, clinicians, and lots of reading, Ax is where he is now. I think it is safe to say that he is an entirely different horse.