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Re: [RC] [RC] fake lameness - Maryanne Gabbani

My 22 year old mare Dorika is brilliant at this. Most of the time she loves work, but we spent 18 months doing dressage many years ago when I had her boarded temporarily at a barn that only had an arena. Let's just say that while she got to be very good at it, her heart was never in it, and it was routine to see her grossly lame the second that a 20 metre circle was called for, but she did have problems remembering which leg and usually got called on it. The fastest way to cure her lameness was to let her stretch her poor injured body by walking around the edge of the arena and then asking for a nice fast canter....astonishing how quickly she could heal.

The same mare has a wicked buck, one that goes up and twists sideways...I think they call it sunfishing...and no one can sit that buck. No one. You end up being ejected at great speed over her left or right shoulder. AND she has wicked good aim...usually for a puddle.  She's only done it a few times but they were all at that barn and they were always when the groom whose job it was to feed her in the morning forgot to open her box and let her out into the arena to play while he was cleaning her box and getting her feed. Her best performance was the day after Christmas when I'd gotten a new saddle, Crosby Prix des Nations, and was trying it for the first time on her. We started out ok, but she suddenly went to warp speed, circled the arena twice and headed for a huge lake where someone had forgotten a hose the night before.  In the center of the lake, she executed her buck which left me sitting in the middle of the water and then she went to stand at the edge and look at me. Sure enough, her groom had been taking a "holiday" and she hadn't been out to play in 3 days. As long as she got her playtime, she was willing to put up with whatever nonsense I wanted afterwards, and now that she lives in a paddock 24/7 we don't have these issues. 

Oh yeah. No doubt about it. Some horses can reason just fine. This is also the smartest bloody mare I've ever seen


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Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
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Replies
[RC] fake lameness, Tx Trigger