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Gavilan
Gavilan, AKA Gabby, is my 12 year old best friend. I got Gabby as a 5 month old colt. Gabby was a trailer payment! That was the best deal I ever made. Gabby has always wanted to be the "ridden horse". He could never wait to grow up and be the Chosen One, the Ridden One. As a youngster, Gab was always tried to get in the house... or we'd find him walking around with a halter he'd gotten off the gate flung over his head or around his neck in a youthful attempt to dress himself up like a real horse. He'd walk up to us proudly as if to say "Okay, I'm ready. Lets *do* something". If I left the trailer open, he'd walk in and beg for a ride to the grocery store. Once there, we'd buy carrots for people in the parking lot to feed to him. His reaction
to being turned out in the pasture
after his first 100 miler was
to nicker demandingly at me
- he felt abandoned and betrayed.
He sulked off to poke at the
huge bucket of mash and pile
of hay, and I wanted to give
in and sleep at the stables
with him. |
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Note
the bruise 1 inch from the ground
in the first hoof picture. This
was caused by adjusting Boa's
too tight.
Gavilan was moved from an irrigated pasture 7 weeks prior to these pictures, thus the dramatic line in his wall. I'm happy with his feet at this point, 4 weeks into his last trim. We moved and started training for endurance in the past 3 weeks after almost 6 months of layoff. In spite of the increased work and significantly harder footing, he's growing lots of extra foot, particularly in the quarters, where increased work is encouraging a scoop to form. When I check his feet, I pay attention to features such as wall flair, balance, the coronet line, heel height& heel conformation. Gab always had an underrun heel and long toes when he was in shoes. |
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Gavilan loves endurance, but I was too busy trying to run a tack shop to ride competitively for the past 4 years, so we conditioned for distance riding and played with the local riding club. The pictures to the left are of Cody, a young lady who leased another of my horses, Kadance, for a year. We took the boys to the local rodeo, where Cody competed in her first Gymkhana on Kadance as I sat around on Gavilan. This was Gabby's first Rodeo, and he was fascinated by the fast action & activities -- particularly the part where horses got into bucking!!! He looked around at me with this startled expression on his face at the violence "Wow - did you see what I see???" Gavilan is too smart, sometimes... how do you explain something like that to a horse? He also noticed that people seemed to enjoy this bucking stuff!! When we got home and Cody wanted to ride him, he demonstrated (very gently!) the new skills he picked up from the rough-stock. This crow hopping looks more impressive than it was. |
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