Thoroughbreds can do
Fast Commander Learns Fast!
Congratulations! Former Thoroughbred race horse Fast Commander pins in all three of his first horse show classes with a first and two seconds! Not bad for afour year old Thoroughbred just ten months off-the-track! We are proud of both Stephanie and Fast Commander.
Vilas County & Katharina – Bare Feet but No Cold Feet
Vilas is actually doing pretty well. We had some issues over last couple of months with his front feet. The shoes didn’t want to stay on and he lost them over ten times. Very frustrating and nerve racking. So we finally decided to let him go bare foot for two to three months, so that…
OTTBs Aren’t Afraid of Scary Costumes or Politicians
The Success Stories are a lot of fun to read. I thought I might add a posting for the horses still at Bits & Bytes Farm. We have lots of Success Stories and this site is a good place to add some of their stories to those of horses that have already found new moms.…
Maverick on the Move!
His ground manners and patience are all improving. He’s been taught to be hobbled. I only did this because he was getting to be such a handful camping and on big trail rides, I feared for his saftey and didn’t trust him not to jump to get with the herds. He struggled some, but quickly learned to calm himself. The Sunday afternoon following the Saturday that he was first hobbled it actually paid off in an unexpected way.
Team Grayboo Takes a Winter Break from Competing
Amanda and Grayboo have had an up and down fall competition season. They finished well at training at River Glen in August. Cross-country was easy for Grayboo but he knocked one rail in stadium. He seems to get a little lazy sometimes and knocks a rail, but he hates to knock rails so he jumps…
Pulling One Over on Patrick
It was a real eye opening first day…Patrick as it turns out has a pretty good eye for a horse…we did do the fake owner thing to him and he bought it hook line and sinker..but while he and I were out with Game this morning watching her in turnout, he commented that “you know, this horse looks a lot like that Great Game horse on the Bits and Bytes site”…I had to look real close to see if somehow he had tumbled to my prank—but he hadn’t—just had a good eye for the horse.
Grayboo Moves Up to Prelim
I have an exciting update on Grayboo and Amanda. They had a dressage score of 39 – not bad for their first attempt at this level and then proceeded to jump a clean stadium round. The course was not ideal for Grayboo – it was very spread out and gave Grayboo a chance to build speed from jump to jump, but Amanda managed to get him around OK (that and he absolutely can’t stand to touch a jump). Grayboo was an absolute super star on cross country – he jumped clean and Amanda finished 7 seconds over the optimum time, so added 2.8 penalties to their dressage score. I was surprised that Amanda was able to finish close to time her first time out. They finished 10th in a large Open Prelim division of 24.
Becoming Familiar with a Friendly Ghost
Familiar Ghost is doing very well. What a gentleman! He’s become a pet of the barn and is just the most terrific horse on the planet. I’ll email you more about his progress as well as training questions I have in a later email.