Black Horse Equestrian Center
Palmyra, WI
Advance Gaited Horse Clinic
Hosted by Greg and Diane Parker
Once in a while it seems like the universe aligns perfectly and brings great things my way. This was one of those weekends that it happened.
This was an advanced clinic and it truly was with 10 excellent horses and 7 truly passionate, dedicated horseman and horsewomen.
Several gaited Breeds were represented being Paso Fino, Icelandic, Fox Trotter, Spotted Saddle Horse and many Walking Horses.
I wish I knew the number of years of experience totaled in this group. Although maybe it's not just the time they have all spent in acquiring the skills they showed but more important the quality and commitment to be how good they were in what they brought to this clinic.
Saddle fitting, bitting, and all the basics were passed by in this clinic and time was spent working towards achieving refinement in straightness, feel, energy work , consistency in gaits, equine psycology and lots of lateral work.
Our Fox trotter "Charming" and his owner Andrea if you notice the photo above is working a fox trot with simply a neck strap and she also did much of her lateral work as well with this neck strap.
Our Paso Fino 'Kato did all his work in bitless head gear. I also was getting rather ill during this clinic and in a lot of pain and Kato I believe knew what was happening well before I was willing to admit just how Ill I was becoming.
Kathy has done an amazing job with "Kato" who I would term as a re-hab horse, I am in ah of who Kathy is and to know someone else that knows and was willing to take on that very hard journey with patience and dedication to bring a troubled horse to the best place it can be.
Diane was up and riding her wonderful bold walking horse "Cash" again after recovering from her second hip replacement, what team this is and it was an honor to be able to ride him myself which it has been many years for me since my last ride upon his very talented back.
Greg rode 3 horses on this weekend, 2 for his clients and one of his own, I think he was pretty tiered after the weekend and he should have been, my goodness he's always going hard. As always striving for perfection in him self, I so love to watch him ride.
Julie and her Icelandic horse 'Dugar" were a great team although the photo shows him in a wonderful tolt I wish I had gotten a photo of him in his trot as well, she truly understands what collection in a horse is and she and Dugar did the most amazing, easy, fully collected trot. Julie has just gorgeous and effective equitation.
Jan and her walker "Max "who is a young horse she has started is 4 and she is doing an awesome job, he handled the stress of a clinic situation beautifully and Jan let me use him for a ground work demo as well. This colt already shows a huge walk on him with an awesome stride length behind, it will be fun to see him fully mature in the future.
Our group also had some round table discussions, sharing our experiences of where the horse industry was, has come and where it is today and our responsibility we each felt we have to it and the horse, they were very special sessions with other equine related topics discussed.
This was a group I will never forget and a clinic I will always cherish.
A special thank you to Mark, a dear friend of Dave and I who was there and was my extra pair of hands I very much needed.
Liz
