You guys paint an amazing picture of horses that I never imagined.
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PP,
I never learned to post as I don’t ride ungaited horses, aka it has to have the name of a state in their breed.
Morgans, best as I can guess, are what the old WY cowboys would call a singlefoot. It’d be an extended trot and that can be very smooth and fast. I has a walker that would rack and I’d rid w/the arabs, racking right along side them, talking with them the whole while.
He was a horse everyone was afraid of, no no one rode him. got him cheap and nothing phased him by the time I was through w/him. The other one, we had to pin him in a stall to get a halter on him and get him out. Young, not greenbroke. Got him out and he seemed very alert and well puttogether. I saw something on his hock and went to touch it…and he kicked my right in the thigh. That’s when I decided I was going to buy him.
Why?
He had the spirit I liked.
And yes, he did kick me, but he only left a dirt mark on my 13MWZs. I barely felt that blur.
So he had a good heart.
And was athletic enough to pull it off.
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Hi Canoer.
Some of the best horses are hard to get started. They buck and rear and snort and fart. You have to be patient and earn their trust. I have had 4 saddle mules in my life and they have taught me all kinds of life lessons. They are smarter and more affectionate than most horses, but they do not suffer fools. They take more patience than horses.
I had a gaited mule out of a Missouri Fox trotter mare. She was a black molly and 16 h. I used to ride with 100 guys on horseback with a Trail Club in Oregon. None of the horses could keep up with her in the mountains. At first they made a lot of stupid jokes, but after about 3 days I would hear “where can I get a mule like that?”
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hey PP
made believers out of them. Gaited mules are big in MO, not so much out west. Walking horses don’t like cattle and mules don’t like dogs. My neighbor complained about my horse going after his cows. horse kicked down a gate, then proceeded to chase the cattle around until he got tired, then do it again. I told neighbor I’d not charge him for exercising his cows…
A mule will kill a dog.
The NW, they are big on ‘paloosas’ due to the indians there using it, but their appaloosas are just a horse with blanket spots most of the time. Same with the “paint horse”. most are just grade horses with chrome. That would make them a [insert breed] pinto. I’ve seen more people pay so much more for a horse with chrome on it…but that’s OK as those types of “horse people” usually lose interest in it and the horse becomes a meadow muffin, a four legged piece of art for their ‘dancing wind spirit’ horse ranch…of one.
You’re making me miss my former life, a cowboy type. The trade-off now though is, there is an abundance of water around me. And…dirt. From there, a whole world of species grows…
I cannot agree about horse breeds. Appaloosas have definitely been bred by the Nez Perce. They are different. I have been around some and like them all.
Same with paints more than chrome.
My mules did not like dogs much. They can strike with their front feet and kill them easily. I taught all of my mules to deal with dogs including mine and any they would meet on the trail.
Nevada is cow country. We have plenty of Quarter Horses and QH crosses around. We want our horses to have some cow.
At the barn where I teach we have an Icelandic, a Friesian, a Paint/Standardbred cross, a
Hanoverian and 2 QHs. I am in love with all of them.
The Paint came out of the show ring and is very talented. She can sidepass, spin and do anything you want. Totally push button. She does tricks on the ground for kids and brings down the house.
Most people that cowboy for a living, work with grade horses and a few quarters. They often have low opinions of horse breeds because they have never worked with any good ones. Your situation might be different.
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[quote=“ppine, post:45, topic:138262, full:true”]
I cannot agree about horse breeds. Appaloosas have definitely been bred by the Nez Perce. They are different. [\quote]
Those horses have been looooong gone. Grade/quarter horse looking things with a blanket on it are being called appaloosas. The appies were long legged animals. That’s why the mounted calvary had such a hard time trying to catch them. When they finally did, IIRC they intentionally destroyed their breeding stock and had conformation requirements for any horses they could have after that.
People could be trying to bring back the original appy–and I hope they do–but they need to take charge of some breeding organzation to get control of breed standards, bloodlines and conformation.
“Most people that cowboy for a living, work with grade horses and a few quarters. They often have low opinions of horse breeds because they have never worked with any good ones.”
Most of the cowboys/hands I’ve known have been really ignorant when it comes to horses. But it makes sense as few spend many hours every day in a saddle for work. If they did, they’d quickly ditch any non gaited horse…assuming they know such things in the first place. And atv is far better to ride fence or do most any other type of that work. Carry more, father, more comfortably, then at the end of the day, turn the key off and you’re done. If you’re working around pens or close in to the buildings, then yeah, any grade critter will work fine if it has sense.
Example: I ask any cowboy, “why do you use that bit?”
answer:
It’s what we always use
It came with the horse
I dunno
Most have no idea WHY there are different styles of bits. They aren’t fishing lures. the cowboy tyes really look down at “horse people”…often justified, but they themselves have a few holes in their game.
In the West, we still ride big circles as in 40-50 or even more miles in a day. In the Great Basin people like QHs and maybe some Thorobred, crossed with them so they can really travel. I don’t think I have ever seen a gaited ranch horse. We had 15 on my Dad’s place. I have worked with plenty of pack outfits, not even one gaited horse or mule.
Our place in Arizona was rough, especially the winter range. No ATV could be used there. We had days when we would get rimmed out and have to back track. Mules could out travel horses in the bad rocks and rough stuff.
As a teenager I had a friend whose family raised pigs on and around a large swamp. To get to them they used mules . Very dependable and hardy.
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I’m VERY impressed a person can ride an ungaited horse that far every day. impressed the horse could do it and impressed the rider could. Their steps are just so short. I’d like to know more about those horses. Morgans single footing could or getting into an extended trot, but to cover that many miles a day is pretty unbelieveable to me.
Pack horses are stouter types, so not surprised no gaited horses there. But I’m a mountain type guy. The pack strings were usually some draft horse/qh mix. Don’t remember what they were called as I wasn’t into that, but they were big and even tempered. For mountain trail riding, there is such a thing as too big of a horse as it’d have to be athletic. A lot of the mountain horse breeds have shorter lets as leverage helps them out there.
mules are always better than horses for that as they’re built differently, their center is different than a horse’s