News from Freedom Run

It's been a busy last couple of weeks. First cutting hay is done and in the barn. We put over 1,100 square bales in the barn for the horses in one afternoon, it feels so good to be set for the winter. Now we continue with hay for the cattle. On June 10th - Our yearling stud colt Samaddin (Magnatli x Sakinate) went to his new home near Edmonton Alberta. New owner Sally Odell plans to use him as a breeding stallion in the future. She called when she arrived home after 3 days of driving and said he traveled very well and he had loads of visitors that came to see an Akhal-Teke for the first time. Samaddin will be a great ambassador for the breed and I am sure he will make many more fans. Sally is also a Friesan breeder with a very nice purebred stallion she stands and several top quality purebred mares. On Sunday June 14th Salam left for Cathy Leddy's Cascade Gold Akhal-Teke where he will be standing stud. Daga is at the stallion station hopefully bred to Salam. Aishet is at the trainers still. Inserted is a picture of Samaddin I took the morning he left for Canada.

Anne-Marie

Klickitat Trek, May 29, 2009
Wendy Connell, Monica Bretherton and I went to the Klickitat Ride in Glenwood, WA this weekend. This ride winds through high pine woods with fabulous trails, river crossings and some minor (to us anyway) technical spots. The weather was pretty warm – somewhere around 90 degrees, but there was a nice breeze.

Monica and I rode the 30 and Wendy rode the 50 on her Nez Perce mare, Allie. Wendy started out at 5:45 am and we left at 7 am. Our first loop was 13 miles to an out vet check. Monica and I started with very fresh horses (even though we’d gone out the night before for a little ride) and we had some very collected canter and some lovely half-passes at the beginning. Ari (Monica’s mount) even threw in a few Teke bucks for good measure. They were feeling GOOD! We trotted and cantered the gorgeous, sandy trails through huge pines, did a little pine-tree bending (some of the trails were very zig-zaggy around trees), up some hills, down some hills and as we hit a long, straight stretch, we looked at each other and said “This is PERFECT”. Of course, we spoke a bit too soon…

About 10 minutes later, maybe, Ari started to peck a little and I looked and he’d lost a front shoe. So, we retraced our steps a bit to see if we could find it, but didn’t. Happily, we had extra easy boots on each saddle, so we both hopped off and I put an easyboot on him in about 20 seconds, with horse trotting up behind and horses trotting off in front. Then, we continued on and Ari figured out the slightly different feel to that one front leg. We trotted past the photographer and had our ride photos taken and then came to the first vet check. Pandemonium! There must have been 50 or 60 horses in one not very large clearing, with two or three water tanks, 2 vets and my oh my! We had several close calls with horses threatening to kick, while in the vet line, Ari and Galen didn’t want to be parted at ALL (definitely something to work on for the next few weeks!) and then Ari didn’t trot out perfectly sound. Not his front either, but he had stiffened up a bit behind while waiting and was just a little tight in the hind end. We realized later that the heat, hills and speed were just a bit more than he’d done before. So, Ari was done and I was to continue on. Galen thought that wasn’t a very good idea at first and between threading through the mobs of horses standing and hearing Ari’s whinnying, it took a bit to get a mile out of camp. But, we soon met his ‘new’ best friend and continued on. 7 miles back to camp completed the first loop and we then had a 30 minute hold that was mainly spent in the vet check line again. I did find that riding alone gives you a lot of opportunity to chat (I kept missing ribbons I was chatting so much and had to backtrack a few times) and I got to talk to several people about Tekes. As Galen was being very impressive at this point (no screaming or trying to find his brother!), that was good. We came into camp, were pulsed down immediately and vetted through fine. Our last loop was 10 miles and we found several new ‘best’ friends and he got to impress people with his smooth gaits and forward movement. We rode mainly with a lovely lady on a Paso Fino. When we walked, she led but when we trotted, we led. We exchanged stories about riding ‘rare’ horses (there aren’t all that many Pasos doing endurance either, compared to say, Tennessee Walkers). We came in right around the middle of the pack, were pulsed down on entry and passed the vet check with flying colors.

Monica and Ari were back by then, and Monica got to meet lots of people and hear lots of stories – the big one around camp were the girls that tried to lead their horses through a fairly deep and fast river crossing and ended up in a wreck. One horse fell on the girl leading it in the river, the horse then ran downstream, maybe fell in the water, hit a tree with its head and ended up with a fractured skull. Happily, both horse and girl were not too bad – very shook up and definitely out of the ride, but both alive and pretty much in one piece. Several riders stopped and helped them get out of the water, gave them a lecture about being prepared and being calm and got them headed to the vet check. This happened just before we got to the river crossing, which was fast and up to the horse’s knees, but not (to us anyway) really that bad.

So, we got the horses taken care of and waited for Wendy to come in from her ride. We found a nice patch of shade and sat for about an hour and then when Wendy and Allie came in, I trotted Allie out, as Wendy’s knee was giving her trouble and then we all went back to camp. We had a lovely evening, feeling a sense of accomplishment, chatting with people and making notes on things to work on for our next ride, which is July 4th weekend.

There were several Teke crosses there too – Susie Morrill brought 5 Arab-Teke crosses and they all did great and Ramona Thacker was riding a Teke-Arab cross. Shannon Mayhew (or Mayfield?) sorry!, was there, riding her mustang, but she has 4 up and coming Teke crosses. Shannon also top-tenned in the (going out on a limb here, sorry if I’m wrong) 30. The gaited people have a huge group that goes to rides, with blow up alligators (‘gators’), flags, etc, and we thought maybe we need to do that. Maybe a Turkmenistan flag and who knows…yurts seem like a bit too much work. Maybe someone will have some better ideas!

Cathy

Fun with Colors!

Hello all - this is an Akhal-Teke cross filly, by Magnatli out of a pure-bred Arab mare. She was foaled 1/25/09. Magnatli is a golden, golden buckskin. The Arab mare is a bright chestnut. The first picture is at about 1 week old. The second picture at about 2.5 months old. The last two pictures, rear, and front betweeen her dam and another mare, were taken last Friday, 5/22. Would anyone care to suggest what color she is? Her legs are pitch black, her mane and tail appear to be coming in black, and she has a black dorsal stripe. Her name is Merry Marvad and she belongs to my friend Cecelia Clark.
She is certainly "colorfun" I would say!
My own Magnatli filly, Gagatli, is the spittin' image of her dad - golden buckskin with his exact same markings. Someday I'll post some pictures :>)
Shirley
P.S. Well, the pictures don't post in any kind of order, but it's obvious which is which. Adding pictures to your post isn't easy - try it :>)

Aishet

Last week I took Aishet over to my trainers barn for some loose schooling over jumps. Aishet was lunged over jumps in Russia as a 3 year old before I bought and imported her so she has had a little experience jumping. As soon as I arrived at the barn we unloaded her and took her into the indoor arena, we decided to lunge her over the jumps the first time. She calmly stood while I put on the lunging halter. First comment from Robin was “wow, she’s a really good mover” as she trotted happily on the end of the line. We put up a small jumping grid and she trotted right over like an old pro so we raised the jumps a little at a time until she had a ground pole, little vertical, ground pole and larger vertical with a little stone wall underneath. She kept jumping and jumping, when she started to tire Robin said “whoa” but she only slowed down and went to the jump again. So Robin pulled the line to get her off the jumping line and she dragged him so she could jump again. At this point Robin and I were both laughing at her need to keep jumping. I said let her jump one more time and then let’s stop her. So around she goes one more time and after that she wanted to jump again so I said “WHOA” and she stopped right in front of the first jump, she looked at me and then jumped from a stand still. Now she is between the two jumps, she walks over the ground pole and sniffs the large vertical jump, again looks at me and then uses her front legs to knock the jump over and walk over the poles. Then she picks up the trot and takes the jumps again this time picking her way over the scattered poles on the ground. Robin and I had a good laugh at Aishet and her love of jumping, she was very happy with herself after showing off her jumping abilities. Robin and I decided Aishet is a good example of why the Teke’s would have made such a good war horse, they are smart enough to figure out a situation and get out of it safely and they are unstoppable.

Anne-Marie
Freedom Run Farm

Another Teke polo pony in the making

I recently sold Alykhat, my 3-yr-old filly by Gindarkh 13 out of a Mustang mare, to Texas, where she will learn how to be a polo pony. She will be joining Darkh Amber, also by Gindarkh 13, who I sold a year ago to the same woman, and in that year has gone from green-broke to now playing 4-goal polo. Brooks (their owner)is so impressed with how well Amber is doing, how quickly she learned and adapted to the game - not to mention how gorgeous she looks flashing around on the polo field - that she couldn't resist trying another one. I believe that Alykhat will be just as good, if not better. Both of them, Darkh Amber and Alykhat, both inherited their Akhal-Teke sire's agility and determination.

Hope everyone is having a beautiful spring - Shirley

Milwaukee Railroad Ride, April 25th 2009

Monica Bretherton and I loaded up ‘the boys’, Galen and Arzuw, on Friday morning, for our trip over the pass to Kittitas, WA for the Milwaukee Railroad Ride. This ride is run on the John Wayne Trail, an old railroad grade for the Milwaukee Railroad (for more info, see Monica’s blog at http://blog.seattlepi.com/horsebytes/archives/166278.asp for a detailed history). This isn’t necessarily a very interesting ride, as it’s pretty much out and back on the same trail, although ride manager Gail Williams did add a nice lower part to the 3rd loop (our second loop), along a stream and through some fields. There was even a patch of mud to make us Seattleites feel at home. It is a fairly easy trail and makes a nice introduction to endurance. This past weekend though, what made it really an ‘endurance’ ride was the wind. We had gusts up to 100 mph in places and were riding into 60-80 mph gusts with a pretty steady wind when those were quiet. We made jokes about being blown off the trail, and as I felt Galen being blown sideways during some canter strides, I made very sure we weren’t too close to the edge. I don’t think anyone was blown off, but we did notice a few bandannas and other implements that probably flew out of people’s hands.

So, Monica and I did the 25, as this was Monica’s first ride and Ari’s also. Ari did do a trail ride a few years back with my daughter, but that hardly means he was a veteran. We have been conditioning, but my work schedule has made it a weekday thing, after I recover from my very busy weekend (I work swing shift over the weekend). Galen has several years of conditioning and rides under his girth, but we didn’t want to overface either Ari or Monica. We arrived in camp around 1ish on Friday and got camp set up, checked in, vetted the horses in and went for a ride. The wind wasn’t so bad on Friday, and we had a nice 5 or 6 mile warm-up. That night, the wind picked up and we both kept waking up every time the camper started rocking. Monica said it was like being at sea. It didn’t seem to bother the boys much, but they were on the protected side of the trailer. Saturday morning dawned, cold and windy. Our start time was 8 am (yeah, limited distance!) and we went out at the end of the pack. Galen walked out of camp on a loose rein, which I found extremely satisfying, as I’ve spent several years trying to achieve this. In the past, he thought we should roar out of camp, pass everyone and show them all his fine Teke behind. Saturday, he walked like a gentleman, allowed gigging horses a wide berth as we passed those less fortunate. We started trotting probably a half mile outside of camp and then passed bunches of people. I do admit we both were probably more than a bit smug on our well-behaved, smooth ATs, passing gigging, sweating, bouncy arabs and arab crosses. There were also a lot of gaited horses at the ride and some did quite well. We played tag with one mule for quite a while. We came to the tunnel at 4.5 miles and all eastbound traffic went up and over this year. There was another 4.3 miles after this that we trotted and cantered. We made pretty good time on the trip out, averaging 8.8 miles (it took us exactly an hour for the entire outward trip). We made our turnaround and found out why everyone coming towards us was hunched over and looking windblown. Galen thought we should just keep going WITH the wind, forget about heading back. But, we turned into the wind and started our trek back. It was amazing! Over in Western Washington, we’re just not used to wind like this – this would have been a huge storm, with trees coming down, schools closed and barns locked up tight. In Eastern Washington, it was just…spring. Give us Seattle people rain and mud and we’re pretty much ok, but wind! We trotted and did some cantering, but the suspension phase of the canter was a little hairy, as I could feel Galen being pushed over in the air. We also slowed down considerably, averaging about 4.5 miles an hour coming back. Then we came to the tunnel. The tunnel is maybe 300 feet long (I’m guessing) and has some light going Westward. There is about 20 feet that is almost pitch black, so the horses must trust the rider. (Or, maybe they can see way better than us and it’s not pitch black to them). Galen had done the tunnel twice before, so I got off and led. Ari was a bit nervous, but he and Monica came through ok. I know some people ride through it, but when I tried last year, I got so dizzy I almost fell off. Definitely better to walk! We mounted up and headed back to camp, where we were pulsed down when we arrived and vetted through fine. Back to the camper for a hold and lunch for all of us.

Our second loop was the opposite direction and Gail had changed the loop so it was more interesting, with part of it going along the river and through some fields. This made for a nice change and refreshed us all. We came back on the John Wayne trail and had one moment when Galen stepped in a length of wire that stuck around his leg for a stride or two. The actual wire wasn’t the problem, but the weird noise it made dragging along was a bit daunting. But, he listened to me and stopped nicely, and we threw the wire of the trail so some less lucky person didn’t get tangled in it. We did more walking this loop, as both boys weren’t quite as eager to move out anymore. We made it back to camp about 1 pm and were pulsed down coming in. We were amazed to find that we were in the top ten finishers for the 25 and both elected to stand for Best Condition. While I didn’t really think we’d win, it’s an excellent training tool and gives you another vet to look at your horse and comment. So, we did our initial vetting and went back to the trailer to clean them up for the final vetting. I was horrified to see that Galen had rubs on both front pasterns from his Easyboot gaiters, so spent some time getting those looking good. Definitely something to work on for our next rides – no rubs! We went back for our final vetting and the boys were pretty good. The vet did ask if I thought Galen was a bit skinny, so I had to tell him a bit about Akhal-Tekes. Next to an arab or a gaited horse, yes, he’s skinny. But for a fit Teke, not so bad. We finished our vetting and headed back to bed the boys down and have a well-deserved libation. We did think that doing more than the 25 would have been too much definitely for Ari and possibly for Galen at this point. Unfortunately, my working has really cut into our conditioning rides. But, they finished with some reserves and we’ll stick to LDs for at least a while. Probably the entire season for Ari, as he doesn’t have the years of conditioning that Galen does. As for Galen and I, well, we’ll see. A lot depends on if I can get more conditioning in. If not, well, LDs finish nice and early, so we can hang out, drink beer (or wine) and watch the longer distances come and go. More time then to visit and tell people about Tekes!

We came in 9th and 10th (although at the final vetting they said 8th and 9th) and were 7th and 8th (or 6th and 7th?) in the Best Condition. There were about 30 odd people in the 25 and I think there were several pulls. I have to say I was busy looking at my vet card and BC card at that point and didn’t really pay attention.

Now the boys get a few days off to eat. Ari is all for that, but Galen was running laps an hour after we got home.

Cathy

Teke Mania

Magnatli is on the cover of Teke Mania 2009. They used a picture that Kerri-Jo of Canada took at the ATSA/SANA show in September 2008. I am so proud of Magnatli he is such a wonderful boy.

Anne-Marie
Freedom Run Farm

Baby News

Sunday April 26th Sakinate had a beautiful bay colt by Magnatli line Arab. Our one and only foal for 2009. My kids have named him Simon.

Anne-Marie
Freedom Run Farm

Spring is here...Hurray!

Sorry for not blogging in such a long time. I always think of things to blog about when I am cleaning stalls but I always get busy when I get in the house and never get to writing. The horses would probably think I am crazy if I start using the record mode on my phone to work on blog topics as I pick stalls.

Spring is here and I am chomping at the bit to go competing. Metman spent a lot of time in the barn this winter and is fat and sassy but he and I will start our road work to get in shape this week. The fields with our clay ground is still too wet for jumping and hill work so the lane and dirt roads will have to do. Magnatli is almost completely shed out and he looks great, he is going back into circus training next week and he will also learn to drive this summer. Salam is doing good but will stay in the barn until I can send the yearling bulls back out to pasture and he can have his paddock and run-in back for the summer. Mares are all good. The only foal expected this spring is a Magnatli X Sakinate due in May but Sakinate looks ready now and she spends most of her time sleeping in the warm spring sun.

I am curious to know behavior differences between everyones stallions and mares. At my house the mares are much more independent then the stallions. The mares are very friendly but not as "needy" as the stallions. My mares like to be outside all the time and the stallions like to be in the barn. My stallions like to be fussed with all day and the mares want to have their food, their itches scratched and then they are good for the day.

Metman is the clown of the farm, he likes to dump over the wheel barrow while I clean his stall (if I am not paying attention)he is very secure about being alpha male at the farm. Magnatli needs his "mamma love" and wants to be hugged and loved on all the time. He muggs you and gives kisses until it obnoxious. He wants everyone to like him and really takes offense when someone (be it humane or animal) does not like him. Salam gets very jealous when I pay attention to Metman, he likes to have massages and rub downs, he is very spoiled from being in so much with his neck injury. Yes, I am putting human emotions to my horses. I will write about my mares in the next post.

Anne-Marie
Freedom Run Farm

Conditioning for our first ride of the year!

I've been busy with my friend Monica, getting our horses (and ourselves!) ready for our first endurance ride of the year. For Monica and Ari, it will be their first ride ever. Ari has done one 'trail ride' at an endurance ride a few years back with my daughter, but nothing longer. Monica has been riding Ari for several months now, as Callie, my daughter, decided she no longer wanted to (sigh). We've been doing our LSD, long, slow, distance, and have just recently started to speed things up a bit. Our first ride will be at Home on the Range, in Othello, WA, assuming we were two of the first 100 entries. We'll be doing a 25, so it's not really an endurance ride, but this early in the year I'd prefer shorter and slower. Plenty of time to speed things up! Monica has been blogging quite a bit about our rides at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/horsebytes/ and has certainly done a better job at it than I could! Check it out and see for yourselves.

I'll be sure to post how our ride went, after the fact.

Cathy

Magnatli's Pot-bellied Pig!

Now for the possible blog topic. You all will remember my blogs last year about the pot-bellied pig Fat Albert and Magnatli, and their apparent fondness for each other. Well, I have a Fat Albert tale to tell this year, but not involving a horse. About a month ago Karl (my husband) was mowing the yard next to Albert's paddock. There was a dried up palm frond right in his path which I picked up and tossed over into Albert's paddock to get it out of the way. The next morning I looked out of the window and the palm frond was gone - totally disappeared. No, Karl had not moved it. So I'm staring at the doorway to Albert's house - and it looks to me like there are palm frond pieces sticking out of it. Sure enough, Albert had taken the palm frond into his house and shredded it for bedding! So I put a couple more palm fronds in with him, and lo and behold he picked them up and carried them to his house, broke them up so he could get them in, and shredded them. I have since given him a number more - that house is well bedded down and our 32 degree a.m. temperatures (once in a while) don't bother him a bit. There are several pictures of Fat Albert attached - including one mug shot showing how handsome he is ! :>) !


Hope you all are doing well and keeping as warm as possible.

Shirley

The Good and the Bad

Well, the Bad first. Some of you will remember that at the Kentucky Horse Park I got news that my mare Moira, in foal to Magnatli, had apparently slipped her foal. Well, no fetus was found in the stall or the paddock, so Doc palpated her leaving us all with a question mark - at 6 months it is apparently difficult to be sure. Her uterus was large, but he could not find a foal as it "might" have slipped over the pelvis and be hard to find. OK, so we did a progesterone level test on her - it was 3.9 which was indicitave that she was still in foal. Just re-palpated her at 9 months, and the results were the same. Large uterus, no foal. Bad luck - I was very much looking forward to a Magnatli colt out of Moira.
On the other hand, Gekla is looking extremely pregnant (in foal to Magnatli) and extremely content with life, and she is due February 16 - I'm hoping this will be a filly. So that's the good part - just got to hope it stays good!
Ah, horse breeding - there's lots of good and lots of bad, but my many years at it have proven, to me, at least, that the good very definitely outweighs the bad.
Shirley

Winter and Old Dogs

November and December in Virginia are prime riding months- between 50 and 60 degrees, dry and crisp, a great time of year to get in a lot of schooling time. Not this year, though. It has swung wildly from 65 degrees and pouring rain to 25 degrees and 50-mph winds without any kind of pattern at all, making any form of riding routine impossible. To clip the horses would leave them frozen on the bitter days, but they get too hot at 65 degrees to do any serious work. The weather made it impossible to get our outdoor arena finished this fall, so with the ground being either slick as a skating rink or frozen into ruts, it's been nothing but frustration watching them standing around.

Comes December 27, and wow ! 58 degrees and sunny, run and get the tack !

Kazak, the old veteran, knowing him well I put him on the lunge to get his bucks out, 10 minutes of craziness and he was done, lathered but happy. We'll go for a hack tomorrow in the morning when it's cooler, he has a really bushy coat.

Kuma, the youngster, I also put on the lunge line to watch him go and assess where he was at, he hasn't done a stitch of work in almost 6 weeks. It still never ceases to amaze me, 21 years into this breed, how easy they are to get fit and how little it takes to condition them, or I should say, for them to condition themselves. Kuma, who lives out 24/7, does his daily laps down his fence line keeping an eye on the weanlings nextdoor, and even without any formal work in almost 2 months, didn't break a sweat or blow out a match after his pipe-opener.

Watching him trot happily around like he could go on forever, I decided to jump in and enter the endurance world with him this spring, he never wears out and he cheerfully will do whatever I ask, so I guess if I can ride hellbent for leather on a foxhunt for 4 hours, I can do so out on an endurance ride too, and I might even have a chance to look at the scenery while I'm at it ! We'll see if this old dog can actually learn anything new...

Hope it was as nice a day wherever you are as it was here today, hope for spring is still alive !

Allegra
Central Asian Equines

Winter Weather

Here in Western Washington, we have an abundance of snow. Usually, we get 4 inches and within a day or so, it's turned to mud. Not this year. We have up to 4 FEET in places, it's been snowing for over a week, kids didn't have school most of last week because of the weather and we're tired of it!

Of course, with lots of snow, comes the challenges - frozen water buckets, frozen hoses, blocked gates to paddocks, snowy roads, and last but not least, too much snow on the barn roof. We spent most of Christmas day shoveling off the arena roof, although we only made it part of the way. Temps went up in the afternoon, and we're hoping they go up more. Today, we'll be back up again, shoveling away. Horses are up to their bellies in some paddocks and the charm has worn off. The kids are asking 'when will it end'? Probably just in time for school to start again. On the positive side, it sure is pretty and we can really appreciate it from the top of the arena, as we take a break from shoveling. It does make me very glad that I've got enough hay and grain and a frost free water hydrant though!

We're supposed to get some warming this weekend, and I'm all for it. I think the kids, husband and horses are too. Dogs and cats have just curled up in front of the woodstove, and don't seem to mind a bit.

I'm dreaming of a muddy New Year!

Cathy

Merry Christmas

My post from November said that winter had arrived early in Michigan, it has been an artic winter for sure. Yesterday our low was -1 f (and windy) and our highs have been in the teens and it will not stop snowing! The mares have been out in the pasture with a barn for a run in(and they are mostly snuggled in the straw, not outside) everyone else has been in the barn for the last 3 days and the 3 horses with-out heated automatic waterers have had their buckets almost frozen solid by morning. Shirley recently sent an email asking what we were all doing in the snow. Well Shirley, I for one am wishing I was in Florida with you!!!! I would say Magnatli and Metman are wishing the same!! Do you need a barn hand for the winter? It is a good thing that Teke's are good with confinement, the Teke's don't mind at all being locked in the barn, my sons Paint horse cannot stand being in and is going crazy. Teke's are so easy and low maintenance!

We wish everyone a safe and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Anne-Marie, Bob, Bobby, Cassidy and Karissa Rasch
Freedom Run Farm

Hello Everyone
Well, Christmas week is upon us. All of my stalls have plastic red bows on them - I think they are pretty, but the horses are not enthused if there is more than just a breeze blowing through the shedrow. I mean, being plastic, the bows crackle & crunch - sooooooo scary! But, by New Year's - by the time I take them down - they will all be totally acclimated - until next year!
Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas, and a New Year full of happiness!
Shirley

Hi everyone,

Seems that winter has arrived early to Michigan this year. The ground is frozen and the snow is already falling. Everyone is doing fine. The babies (well, weanlings) are getting fuzzy, they are now used to their new routine of coming in at night into their stalls and getting brushed and loved on by my kids. I have been schooling Metman over cross country jumps and he loves it. I plan on getting out and competing him in the spring, we will start with novice although the jumps bore him terribly, he really likes the prelim height obstacles. The mares have all been out to pasture with the cows on grass, now that winter has set in I will bring them up to the barn this weekend. Magnatli will go back into trick training in December and Aishet will go with him to be broke to ride. Salam is at a stand still, he is neither getting worse or better. He has learned to be houdini and can undo any "horse proof" latch. Three times now he has made his pen into one large condo by opening the gate between him and his best friend Apache my youngest daughters little pony. They just stand there together happy as can be. So now I tie the gates with ropes so he can't get to the knots (he can untie just about any knot too). Life is never dull with Teke's.

Hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Anne-Marie
Freedom Run Farm

Husband's First Trail Ride

This past weekend, my husband Larry, went with me on a trail ride. This was his first trail ride in many years and he has been working diligently (kind of) towards it. I told him that when he could ride around the arena off the lunge at the trot and be fairly comfortable doing it, we could go. He's been taking lessons now for about 6-7 months, once a week, from a good friend of mine. NO WAY would I teach him - that's a recipe for divorce. He had finally gotten to the point where he was trotting reasonably well and feeling pretty confident. So, I had the weekend off from my parttime job and we were set!

Saturday morning it was spitting rain, but that is ok as I planned on going to a fairly popular park and that would help keep the strollers, dogs and bicycles at home. Also, a lot of it is under big trees, so unless it's pouring, we wouldn't get that wet. And hey, we DO live in Seattle, so a little rain is no big deal. We got tacked up and I realized that after bugging poor Larry several times to make sure he had all his tack, I had forgotten my helmet! I couldn't believe it, this is the first time I've ever forgotten such an important piece of gear. But, we were there and I planned on a fairly short, very slow ride, so I rode without it. Bad me!

Larry rode Mazzie, our 15 year old purebred gelding, who has been mainly a school horse for the past several years, although he did go to Celebrate the Horse with me this summer. Maz is very experienced and really likes Larry. Larry started out a bit nervous and tense and I had to keep telling him to breathe and try and enjoy the gorgeous woods. After about an hour, he finally did. We probably only did 5 or 6 miles, but some was hills, so Maz certainly got a workout. Galen, who I was riding, thought all this slow stuff was boring and spooked more than he ever has. While his spooks are pretty minor (usually a little bounce in place) he did let me know he had PLENTY of energy to spare. I think he was a bit put out that we had to walk the entire way. Too bad! Mazzie appeared to really enjoy getting out of the arena and off the lunge, where he does a lot of his lessons and was a perfect gentleman the entire time. We did meet up with a few dogs (Galen chased them back to their owners) and one bicycle, but in general it was a very quiet trip, with only the dripping of rain off the trees to accompany us.

We arrived back at the trailer, with Larry all smiles and Galen ready to do about 40 more miles. Now we're planning our next ride, although as I have to work the next several weekends, we might have to plan a bit harder!

I think Maz slept very well that night.

Cathy

Pictures from Show

Here are site links to see pictures from the SANA Rare Breed Show and U.S. Akhal-Teke Championship show

From Kerri-Jo Stewart
http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/kerri-jo/sets/7215760721

Heather Abounader
http://abounaderphoto.smugmug.com

Equestrian Images
http://www.equestrianimages.smugmug.com/



Anne-Marie
Freedom Run Farm