Cob Jockey

Seeing Moo last weekend crystallized some nagging feelings about Welsh breeding and showing I've had for a while. I love this breed, why am I not more passionate about getting involved in every single part of it?

Maybe the most fun I've ever had at a Welsh Show

The answer, I think, is that I'm a performance person first and a Welsh person second, and there are a lot of Welsh out there that can't perform in a sporthorse way. There are, certainly, a lot that can and some breeders that do focus on it. But those often aren't the ones that we (as a breed/association/judges, UK and US both) put up as our "Supreme Champions", which is a halter class. And while we have performance classes at breed shows too, quite a lot of them actually, they don't get the same breathless respect as "Did you hear who the judge put up as Supreme?", which in turn does influence breeding decisions and the overall direction of the breed. 

It bothers me that we (breed/association/judges, UK and US both) wouldn't pin this horse very well in halter.

He didn't just win at NDPC, he DOMINATED his divisions (Second Level and Second Level Freestyle). Nobody else was even close to him.

 

Compared to this, which does pin well, both in terms of conformation and unfortunately in terms of weight also. You almost have to get your horses overweight to pin well in-hand at the more prestigious shows, which doesn't sit well with me.

Real photo colored in to protect the innocent.

So I started down a rabbit hole inside my own head.

What are we doing to promote good canters in Welsh Cobs? If our Supreme Champion only ever has to walk and trot and stand still in hand, are we inadvertently breeding poor canters into our horses? I think we are on the whole, although certainly not everyone is, and I don't think anyone means to. The back conformation above can do a big, ground covering driving trot with his hind legs out behind him, but he won't have a sport horse trot or canter.

More plz.

 

Without outcrossing - are we fundamentally changing the breed if we breed sportier trots and canters into Welsh Cobs? One of the hallmarks of a Welsh Cob IS that efficient, ground covering trot that goes out, not up. They were bred to have a trot stride as big as a full-size horse, keeping up with warhorses while pulling supply wagons and needing minimal food along the way. They were ridden also, but they weren't so much selected for that as they were driving.

Connor doesn't have a great sporthorse canter. Lisa HAS bred better canters into successive generations of her horses since the Connor days (20+ years ago!!) which is one of the reasons I love her program.(Yes, this was a counter canter.)

If we fundamentally change the breed, is it still a Welsh Cob? If it canters up rather than out? If we select for pushing power rather than pulling power? This is a question by itself, but see next question.

Also never scored well in Welsh halter classes

Are we (rare breed people using their animals in sport) trying to make everything a Warmblood? I don't think so, but I do think we're trying to adapt our animals to what people want to use them for in 2025. Just like I used to say with my old house I renovated, I'm always going to respect it for what it is and I won't try to turn it into what it isn't, but that doesn't mean it needs to be a museum to a time gone past. It's allowed to evolve.

I don't need you to be a Warmblood, I just need you to be you.

What is it that makes a Welsh Cob a Welsh Cob?  To me, it's a compact, hardy animal with a strong sense of self-preservation that can be trusted to generally make good decisions in their own interest and the interest of their human. They blur the lines between pony and horse, have great hair (duh), a relatively upright neck, and connect deeply with people in a way not every breed does. They have a sense of humor and a conformation that enables them to do a lot of different sports well, even if they're never going to the Olympics in any of them.

So...what can we do about it? I have some thoughts on that too, but that's a post for a different day. 

I need to put a coda on the Eva story.

It's interesting. I have had the opportunity to work with three very different, wonderfully bred Welsh Cobs on a loan basis over the past few years, Aeres, Encore and Eva. Two of them taught me a lot about training and riding. but Eva taught me a lot about myself.

Eva taught me that I can, but I don't want to, bounce like I used to. It had been well over fifteen years since I fell off a horse when I fell off of her in August. It was a "good" fall, but I'm still dealing with some lingering (and thankfully, slowly subsiding) pain a few months later from my arm and leg hyperextending as I whiplashed them into the ground. With the way my mental health is built upon CrossFit, and the way our co-op is built around us all being able to perform manual labor, nothing scares me more than being injured.

 

She taught me that I don't naturally think like a horse trainer. I missed some subtle signs that there were small holes in her foundation, which turned into bigger holes later on. Ones which I thankfully had time to fix, but still, we could have avoided the fixing.

But - she also taught me that I can learn to think like a horse trainer. Especially when I rely on my friends, like Kate, Mary and Leah.

I'm going to try not to generalize an entire gender, but Eva taught me that I don't know how to speak mare. If I had had the time to really develop a partnership with her, I think she would be dynamite, but it's a whole different ball game from geldings and stallions, one that I am not used to playing.

She taught me that I can teach a level of subtlety I never thought I was capable of. That mare, no joke, steers off your seat and weight aids basically alone, in a rope halter, thanks to the way Kate had me start her. I'm looking forward to using that knowledge on Disco.

And she validated my opinion that some horses need to be started young for reasons that have entirely to do with the mind. I do not mean started hard, but I do mean that they need to understand the concepts of "work" and "submission" when they're still impressionable. Eva is a wonderful mare with a sweet personality, but we never really found anything she enjoyed, work-wise. I can't help but wonder if her work ethic would be different if she was started younger.

Ultimately, unlike Encore and Aeres, Eva wasn't really with me to be sold, and she is now back home, perhaps to be bred next spring. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to play with her and for the perspective that she gave me.

The day after I clipped Connor, Monday evening after work, I made the four hour roundtrip to drop Connor off at CGP's for flying changes bootcamp.

Connor in his "dorm room". Thanks T for the photo!

It was harder this time than it was last year. Maybe it was having seen him tote baby Annie around the day before, or how much I've grown to appreciate this horse beyond any competition goals we could possibly achieve together, but whatever it was, leaving him there looking over the stall grate was incredibly difficult.

Miss this face already. Photo by T.

 Buuuuut just a few days later I was back for a lesson. This time, with friends!

Guess whose freaking GORGEOUS best deal of the century Double D this is

T was there with her half-Welsh Cob mare (by Cardi) Karma, and it's thanks to her that I have media for this post, because I do not recommend oversleeping and forgetting your Pivo. I won't write about T's lessons myself, but I was personally grateful to get to watch them, as I haven't seen CGP work with many young horses yet, so it was great to see just how much progress T and Karma made in a single lesson with her!

I don't care how small your horse is, I will make it look huge

Just like last year, after three training rides with CGP I could already tell a huge difference. After she had him for two weeks in July, his canter was effortlessly uphill and it felt like there was nothing I could do to break it. After our USDF season ended in August though, it got flatter and flatter. But after three training rides, it was right back to where it was in July.

So far, all she'd worked on is strengthening and improving the canter, and after focusing on nothing but biomechanics through September and October, it felt great to work on Connor again. The focus of this lesson was getting him to step up with his hind legs when I closed my legs, rather than striking off first with the forelegs and leaving his hind legs behind.

This was.

Hard.

Connor is a pulling breed. I've talked a lot here about how he's most comfortable pulling his body along with his bodyweight over his chest. He likes to strike off from the halt into the walk by moving his forelegs first, and we were basically asking him not to do that. 

You can see in the GIF above how badly he wants to walk forward with his forelegs instead of stepping the hind feet up closer to the forelegs. This is physically difficult for him, with his hind legs hung off his hindquarters in a way that's more conducive for pulling than pushing, but not something he's completely incapable of.

Would so much rather look at the sexy pony in the mirror

But!

He did finally get it, and when he did, what do you know, suddenly those simple changes were just there.

I need to be able to get them this easily all the time

"This is the type of carriage and canter he needs in order to do flying changes, otherwise he's just going to splat into those the way he likes to splat into the simples," she said.

You mean...I don't just get to wave the white flag over simples and forget they exist forever? Sigh. Like I know it's the right move but sometimes I just don't want to eat my broccoli, you know?

(Actually I love broccoli, but I'm trying to make a point, okay!)

Trot's not looking too bad either

The quality of the canter and therefore the success/failure of the simple changes also had quite a bit to do with where I was sitting in the saddle. I don't sit on my outside seatbone enough in the canter, which has a lot to do with me, and potentially something to do with some body soreness on his part. More on that soon. But when I actually sat deeply on him, suddenly the simples got a lot easier, and we had good success with them overall.

Happy boy with his new friend, Fish

That would be the last time I see him for two weeks and the longest I'll go without seeing him this whole autumn, as Nick and I went out of town for the weekend for the first time in ages!

I've been blogging for well over a decade now, and for the first time, I don't know where to start after last weekend's Welsh North Central Regional. Any one of these things is an entire post by itself!

I fell SO in love with Disco. And so did the judges.

I still cannot believe how big Disco won, omg.

 

Connor was a fun fire-breathing dragon for me in Ridden Cob.

OMG WTF WHY ARE THERE PEOPLE THERE CANNOT BRAIN

And then took such good care of Annie in her first ever horse show.

Connor and I won the pants off the English division.

English Pleasure, you say? I can look pleasurable.

And then he carried Mary safely around her first hunter course in over a decade - even if he would have preferred a jumper round to a hunter round.

SUDDENLY REMEMBERED I'M AN EVENTERRRRRRRRRR

And I have the ability to document this show at all because LEAH drove 11.5 HOURS to spend a long, cold, mostly sleepless horse show weekend with me, and took every picture in this post, and I am just so incredibly grateful I can hardly put it into words. She captured the most special memories.

A full run-down is coming, but perhaps not for a day or two as I have to ferry Connor to Flying Lead Change School today!

This pony.

 

We had a jam packed weekend last weekend and I just can't say enough good things about how much heart he showed and how patient he was. First, I drove over to Cincy to pick him up and bring him home, and had a lesson with my GP trainer.

Ah, the rare unmounted picture of us both together, in which our collective vertical challegedness is truly visible

Then we hustled him onto the trailer and went straight to the HHP, where I bathed him immediately. The (literal) second he was dry, we showed in-hand, first at 6pm and then after he had eaten dinner and probably fell asleep, we had to hustle the poor guy back out of his stall on the Dressage side of the complex at 10:30pm for the Get of Sire class, where he and his sisters represented his late sire.

The next morning he turned in a fantastic Dressage test at the Dressage show:

Look at me sitting up and not pulling! Also, new show jacket alert.

And then I walked him back across the complex to the Welsh show where he showed in three English Pleasure classes, was the English Pleasure C/D Champion in a ride-off, then won Ridden Cob and took reserve to a cute Section B with a kid aboard in the Ridden Welsh Championship, both of which require a hand gallop. Historically, he and I haven't been very good at the hand gallop. The poor guy was so tired after all he had done that day, but I managed to get him jazzed up and his tired body and big heart gave me the best hand gallops he's ever done in Ridden Cob.

Feet and hair flying everywhere

And can we talk about the halt he gave me at the end of the hand gallop?

Through it all, he was his happy, patient self. There have been times over the past couple of weeks where I've been sorely tempted to find a way to keep Aeres and lease Connor out just based on the fact that she is so much better suited for Dressage than he is. 

But this weekend reminded me that there are things that are more important than scores, and what Mary told me all those years ago still rings true, that I need a horse with a sense of humor. And that amateurs have to "buy the brain first". And that I'll cheerfully take a hit on my "Gaits" collective score forever if it means keeping this cuddly, happy, ears always up, cheerful, game-for-anything pony in my life. He just makes me smile the entire time I'm with him from beginning to end.

Also very snuggly to friends-that-are-actually-family that are going through tough times and really need some pony therapy <3

I will leave you with my favorite story of the weekend. I was showing some of Lisa's other ponies at 10:15pm on Friday night and needed someone else to get Connor from his stall maybe a quarter mile away at the Dressage end of the show complex. I sent my mom over, but it was pitch black out and she had no idea where his stall was.

"Connor!" she stage whispered in the dark. And I was tickled but not surprised to learn that he nickered when he heard her call his name and that's how she found his stall <3

Mom and pony selfies

We finished the weekend dropping him off in Cincinnati again, and it was never harder to leave him, but also never easier. He's officially never going anywhere, so I'm excited to see just how good he can get with GP trainer.

It's been a heavy couple of days around here, how about we end the week with something funny?

MW is the furthest thing from someone who wears her heart on her sleeve.  She's all business, all the time.  But even though she'd never admit it, she seems to have a soft spot for the only UK-native breed equine in our clinics.


She'd snuggle his head every now and then, and talk to him about Wales.  Brits seem to have an animosity-in-jest relationship with the Welsh, and the way she talked about him and to him was hysterical.  Enjoy a few MW Welsh jokes!

MW: "A good Welsh Cob spends Monday through Friday herding sheep on mountains, building stone walls, all that kind of thing.  Saturday, takes the farmer and his family to market.  Sunday, takes everybody in the cart to church, brings them back home.  And then the farmer goes off to the pub, and the pony waits outside, and then somebody loads the farmer drunk into the cart and then the pony brings him home.  And that's a good Welsh Cob."  (I want to get that embroidered on something 😂)

MW, to the clinic attendees who had just asked what breed Connor is: "Welsh Cobs are trotters.  They trot off with you most of the time." [clinic attendees laugh]

MW: "The Welsh people are missing out, they really need to start marketing the 'Welsh Warmblood'"

MW to Connor: "[Cincinnati] isn't really your scene is it?  You need a few more mountains."
Me: "And a few drunk Welshmen?"
MW, laughing: "And a few drunk Welshmen, yes."

Connor's sire was laid to rest this week.  He was absolutely Connor's breeder's heart horse as well as the foundation of her breeding program.  It's never easy, but it's even harder with the special ones.  She wrote on the Castleberry Cobs Facebook page:

"RIP *Tuscani Dundee. July 1992-Oct 2018. What an honor and privilege to have owned (and be owned) by such a magnificent horse. He truly changed our lives for the good. We have met so many wonderful people and made lifelong friends because of him. He seemed happy until the end when his body began to fail him, and for that I am grateful. He is buried on our farm, between a large Oak and Hickory tree, strong and beautiful like he was. He leaves his legacy through his offspring. If you have a son or daughter of his, or a grand-cob of his, please share a favorite photo (or two) in the comments to honor him. Thank you, Tori Laub for selling him to us. He was a horse of a lifetime."

I wrote a blog post in 2012 about the time I rode Dundee in the Parade of Stallions at the Hoosier Horse Fair.  Even during a thunderstorm, at the State Fairgrounds, being ridden for the first time in a year, being ridden for the first time by me, in front of a crowd with babies in strollers and cowboy hats and tents and who knows what else, he was kind, gracious and focused.

I described him then as "forward, but easily controlled, confident, yet keenly aware of his surroundings."  Just an all around good guy.


Rest in peace, *Tuscani Dundee.  You were so loved, so special and had such a huge influence on the breed in North America.

Last weekend Connor's breeder Lisa and I flew out to Denver to watch two of her ponies compete in the Rocky Mountain Dressage Society Regionals show.  And we had a BLAST!


By far the highlight of the weekend was meeting blogger Erika and Castleberrys Gavin.  I met Gavin on my very first trip to Lisa's farm in early 2010, but I had never met Erika before.  Lisa and I commented that it felt like we'd known Erika our whole lives, she was so easy to talk to.

Gavin mooching some peppermints!

I brought my DSLR with me and took thousands (possibly literally...) of pictures of the two of them showing.  I'll let Erika show those off (just peer pressuring you into blogging again, NBD 😀 ) but I definitely wanted to tell the story of visiting her lovely barn and riding Gavin before the show on Friday night!

Gavin showing off some stretchy trot!

You know how some horse and rider pairs just seem like they were made for each other?  That's these two.  Everything about them was perfect for each other - build, attitude, energy level.  Even their hair, which I have to point out is the exact same color:


She will have to tell the story of how she picked Gavin sometime on the blog, because it's a cool one!

After she rode him for a while, she handed the reins to me.  At first I wasn't very assertive with him, since I'm so self-conscious about riding other peoples' horses.  But then she told me "You have to make him do things at first", and once he knew I was serious, we really started having some fun.

Why yes, those stirrups are rolled, thanks for asking 😂

Gavin is the 10th Castleberry Cob I've ridden, and I was struck by just how much riding him felt like riding his and Connor's sire, *Tuscani Dundee.  I'm still having a hard time describing it, but there's a lot of air time in their gaits and they feel more like riding a big horse, not at all like riding a pony.  Neither one of them feel anything like riding Connor, who is a carbon copy of his mother in every way.

Horse is not downhill at all, the camera is crooked!

Erika has done a fantastic job with this horse, and I really think they might end up going farther than Connor and I.  Gavin has a fantastic walk, a super active hind leg, and she's done a great job with the contact with him.  They're going Training level now, but schooling most of First and you can tell they'll be ready for a move up in the not-too-distant future.

Gavin is a very stout fellow compared to Connor, despite being just over an inch taller than him.  My hips hurt after I rode him.

I couldn't end this post without doing a shout out to Erika's AMAZING trainer, who was nothing but friendly to us all weekend even though we'd never met before.  She is the perfect combination of calls it like she sees it, knows her shit, encouraging, side-splittingly hilarious and genuinely talented.  Also she has fabulous purple hair:

If you're in the Denver area, look her up, she's awesome.

I had soooo much fun and can't wait to do it again sometime!  Next it's Erika's turn to visit Indiana and play with some baby ponies though 😊