We are not quite a month in, and I am already so, so glad I've sent Disco to Kate.
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| A photo of two stallions hanging out together! |
Kate videos some of her training rides for me, and narrates them, and in watching those, I've realized that it's my first time actually seeing this process of a young horse being started. And there are times where she'll laugh something off that I know I would have taken too seriously, or where she released when she felt him consider the idea of what she wants, when I would have hung on to the ask too long, and it just crystallizes how right the decision was to not do this myself.
It's made me appreciate the trainer as a professional. Kate has done this so many times, she's performing a repeatable process much the same way I do at work, and Disco is benefiting from her experience with the process in the clarity she brings to his training rides, and therefore the relative speed at which he's learning - already doing things at not quite five that Connor was closer to 10 before I stumbled into those skills with him.
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| Baby SI, HI and counter canter loops already! |
It has also put me so at peace with being an amateur. I greatly admire my amateur friends who have started their own horses, but I'm not that kind of amateur. I'm not going to start the number of horses in my lifetime that Kate has, because I spend my days being a professional in other areas, and that's okay!
But no matter how impressed I am with how far he's gotten under saddle already, Kate giving him friends and social situations makes me the happiest.
So far, Disco has been turned out unsupervised with one of her geldings, and has gotten supervised turnout time with another gelding and with his fellow Castleberry Cobs class of 2021 brother from another mother, Oxley, the Warmblood cross that Kate owns, who is also still intact. They haven't seen each other since they were weanlings, and they were so happy to be turned out together.
Disco continues to challenge my preconceived ideas of what a stallion should be and do, and now so does Oxley. That will be a whole post in and of itself someday - I have some half-baked thoughts running around in my head I need to flesh out before I put them on the internet.
But at the end of the day, raising him in a social situation and then insisting on only sending him to trainers who are also willing to keep him in a social situation seems to have been the right call. He is just a horse who likes hanging out with other horses (and being the low man on the totem pole, no less), and he knows no other way.
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| Grooming each other! Don't mind Oxley's little riblets, he's going through a growth spurt. |
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7 comments:
What a lovely update. The narrated training rides sound like an awesome learning tool for when he's home with you!
I love this! Kate is so amazing!!!! I worked with her virtually and she was enormously helpful. Disco looks happy and well adjusted. Horses need other horses :)
This is fantastic! What a lucky pony to have this experience.
I'm so grateful that you and Disco have this opportunity. Kate is undoubtedly doing right by him, and I'm so so happy Disco continues to get companionship.
I love this so much <3
What a perfect situation! And you're so lucky to have access to someone like Kate who is truly good at what she does. It's not easy to find someone like her as I'm sure you already know and appreciate! I love that Disco is still getting to be with friends too.
I think our country conditions us to have a lot of preconceived notions about stallions that really aren't true for most of them. Other countries don't keep them as segregated as we do here. Having Jamp in tact for awhile really changed my perception too. He had bred live cover and still was completely unbothered to have mares around him.
What a fantastic experience for both you & Disco. I am glad that he is able to have social time with other horses. Kate is a gem. I wish there were more of her around.
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