FEIRedHorse.blogspot.com
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
WEG quest - Countdown
The Difference!
Where they come from, I am not sure, how they got that way, I don't know either. But I am not naive enough to think that I actually built a world class athlete, but I think you have to be smart enough to realize what you got when you got one, and know that it is a "special gift", to be carefully taken care of. Most of my horses have been top ten or top 5 endurance horses but I really had to work at getting them into that kind of condition. The good thing about that is that I was very familiar with building the athlete from the ground up. I would say that there is quite a difference between that top 5 endurance horse and that special once in a lifetime horse. The difference is in pure athletic ability.
Why WEG?
Things change a little when you get older. 4 or 5 years ago when I found out that the World Equestrian Games were going to be in the USA I thought about how cool it would be to compete at that level for the USA team. I don't know that I ever had any aspirations of riding in such a event, but certainly in building the athlete. After hearing that a Shagya horse had won the WEG in Germany I thought it would be a good idea to get one. I looked around and could not find any geldings so bought a stallion. Well the stallion did not work out but about the same time I realized that he was not a endurance horse I started riding MONK who was about 4 at that time.
I guess you never know where that next world class athlete comes from, but certainly did not think he was in my back yard. In the beginning we were just having fun and pretty much my quest for that WEG horse was just another faded dream. As MONK became more mature he really showed lots of promise. I started doing some local endurance rides and he did quite well. He never seemed to tire, his attitude was all business.
If you think about the persons you know with really good, once in a lifetime horses, you know that it does change how you do things and your outlook some. I know a few who were just having fun with their horses running mid pack, then all of a sudden they come up with a really good horse and now they are top ten, top five and winning rides.
Less is More
Not sure this is true for all horses but once MONK was legged up and had done a few 50's we pretty much changed how we conditioned...
Read more here: http://feiredhorse.blogspot.com/2010/05/weg-quest-countdown.html
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