Desti..NO

Destino occasionally gets some blog time.
http://piaffedreams.blogspot.com/2007/08/destinos-first-show.html
http://piaffedreams.blogspot.com/2007/09/apex-farm-show.html
The pic above was from his sales ad in spring of '05

Mostly he's just been enjoying his life here as part of the family, a horse Dad can groom on weekends, Mom can hack around on, and I just enjoy seeing him make progress each week. He really had his mind warped about canter, but he's got it now. We tried to show at training level a few weeks ago and were denied as the show was cancelled. However, there are other shows and I still have the goal of doing first level and freestyle with him.

He's a fun horse with a great character... and a very wide back. For some reason, my old beat up 12yr Wintec pre-air panel looks like crap saddle is what works for him. It sort of looks like it fits, but doesn't look overly comfortable. I've put the very nice xwide County on him and he turns into a wiggly crooked horse. I even put the super plush Custom Saddlery Revolution that is made for my other wide flat backed andy and Destino rushes around with ears pinned. Remarkably, he seems rather indifferent to my obviously too narrow Custom Saddlery Wolfgang Valor, but perhaps that is due to the angled back points... I dunno, but it slides up his shoulder so that doesn't work. We are back to the Wintec which brutalizes my seatbones.

So, I had the opportunity to try another saddle with a wide tree that fits Mom's mare. I placed it on his back and it looked mildly too narrow, but we felt we'd be looking for the next wider tree size for her mare. If this worked for him, viola, share a saddle.

Uhhhh.... not only did he say NO... he said HECK NO and GET THE FREAK' OFF ME!! Quite politley I might ad as he made a huge flailing circle with his head and neck, tripped for two steps, crow hopped ever so gracefully not to disrupt me before tripping again and then planting his feet.

I hopped off, pulled the saddle off, put it on the fence and rubbed his back down apologizing the whole while. In that breif episode I saw all the "issues" his prior owner and trainer/assitant trainer saw. Do you think they ever bothered to get him a saddle that fit? *sigh* Poor horse.

He seemed happy with my rubbing his back and at 6pm the barn was too far away to retrieve our trusty ugly Wintec. We walked over to the mounting block and I popped on up (which thankfully is not at all far given he's 15hh) His wide back with a tending towards too generous layer of fat, broad shoulders and thick arched neck of lucious hair felt perfect. We took a walk around the ring and while he was at first skeptical that it would feel better gradually began to relax and reach towards the contact as I stretched my weight into my heels and found my classical seat sans saddle. For shoots and giggles, I tried the prior trainer's "fluidity" philosophy whereby you basically sit on your tailbone, slouch and turn your toes out. WHOA! Head flip, and ear pin all over again. I assured him I was only trying to be sure of what worked and why and returned to a balanced seat. He returned to a balanced horse.

Pretty soon we were trotting around the ring, working school figures and practicing our lateral work. I left the canter alone... I'd like to think I'd ride that fine, but its been eons since I rode bareback and I'd like to go to my clinic with Krisi this weekend! LOL

Destino a couple of months after we got him. Check out the topline and development in comparison to his sales pic and the recent "after bath" picture below.