Horse’n Around Days

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Posted on July 26th, 2007 under other breeds, shows/competitions • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback

17 Responses to “Horse’n Around Days”

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   Carola:
   July 27th, 2007 at 1:03 am

   Hello Kerri-Jo,

   I think your photos again are very nice! What makes me sad, is that Pan Tau does not look happy at all… Perhaps he would have been much more balanced with a smooth girl on his back? It is hard to see the white in his eyes and mouth open wide… Have never seen such an impression on a horse for a long time – even if these will be “moment-shots”…
   Best wishes, Carola

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   kerri:
   July 30th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

   Akhal-Tekes are hot-blooded and can’t be ridden like a warm-blood. They are very sensitive and responsive.

   This particular gentleman is “a professional jumper with 20 years of experience” and felt he needed to do some training on Pan Tau even though it was an exhibition. This is how the public saw Pan Tau.

   Now go to Amrita’s website and see those photos of him being ridden earlier eventing – just beautiful.
   http://www.akhalteke.cc/whatnew.html

   I feel those photos show that Akhal-Tekes are not for everyone. Also, they do show off Pan Tau’s amazing long neck and dexterity, lol.

   Pan Tau wasn’t hurt and I believe the combination got along better the next day.

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   Carola:
   August 2nd, 2007 at 7:34 am

   Without offending anybody I don`t know I would state:
   For one of my now three AT`s I would always look for somebody with a Natural Horsemanship background as a rider -or a kind of “instinctiv natural horsemanship” – ;o) or somebody else who does not put itself under pressure to look perfect for the folks around. Or a professional rider who has this gift.
   I think the problem with professional jumpers/ riders/ grand prix winners with 20 years of experience can be that they want all at once. Do you remember a newsgroup-theme about Kinor I think? It took three days or so until another rider/ instructor climbed his back -after they got used to each other and the stallion finally said “OK!”. Please correct me if I missunderstood something! There may be the other case that horse and good rider harmonize just after the first minutes -then you will have a nicer photo motive too. ;o) Oh yes, I like the pictures with Amrita -perhaps that was one of the reasons why I thought I would not trust my eyes now.
   Best wishes, Carola

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   Sherry Leväaho:
   August 2nd, 2007 at 3:03 pm

   Well, I am sure I will offend some people when I say that there is no need to ‘beat about the bush’: a “professional” who rides a clearly sensitive horse in that manner is a bad trainer. Especially since he was not put up on the horse in order to ‘train’ him. I am saying this as a professional who is married to a professional, with lots of experience training lots of different kinds of horses. The classical method does not tolerate abusive riding. Sometimes a trainer must show firmness, but such harsh treatment clearly was not working. Many masters have said, “where skill ends, violence begins.” Call it “natural” horsemanship if you want to.

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   Soren Nielsen:
   August 4th, 2007 at 11:30 am

   Dear Kerri

   About your first comment to Carola, I hoped you would have answered: “You’re right, there was no reason to treat the horse like this. This was intolerable, and it should never have happened. Horses of this breed are very sensitive and responsive, and should be looked at and treated in accordance with this. The owner of the horse had a serious talk with the rider afterwards.”
   But you didn’t. Because apparently it didn’t happen.
   There is no lol here! This kind of horse abuse would not be accepted in any competition, it would cause immediate disqualification and the rider would be banned from the rest of the competition, if not for 1 year. At least in the country where I come from.
   So what is my concern?
   It is not this isolated episode, it is rather the fact that there are Teke people out there that thinks that this is great and the pictures are great.
   That makes me very sad.

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   Leonid:
   July 26th, 2007 at 8:36 pm

   That fat man is sadist really

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   kerri:
   August 4th, 2007 at 8:52 pm

   This is a factual recounting of a day that happened. I am neither advocating nor condemning the style of riding.

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   kerri:
   August 4th, 2007 at 9:12 pm

   To all concerned, here is my opinion of what happened:

   It was obvious to me that the rider was well trained with good technical skills. If you look closely at the reins in any of the photos, although he has contact he is never pulling on Pan Tau’s mouth.

   Unfortunately he was not paying attention to Pan Tau’s reactions.

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   Sherry Leväaho:
   August 6th, 2007 at 12:12 am

   Perhaps what you say is true. But also, as you say, he was not paying attention to the horse. I know as well as anyone that it is impossible to ride perfectly all the time, especially on a possibly nervous horse in public, but the overall impression is very bad. Even the single photo of him jumping the horse is not very flattering (to be fair, other jumps may have looked better). If I were that man, I would be embarrassed that such photos are being seen in public. If it took so long for him to ‘get acquainted’ with the horse, such an experienced horseman should have shown better judgement and been less ambitious in what he wanted to do with the horse.

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    Amrita Ibold:
    August 6th, 2007 at 9:53 am

    A friend told me this conversation was going on here concerning my stallion Pan Tau.
    I would remark that most of the “ugly images” of resistance were created because Pan Tau was required to stand still in a specific spot, after the show, so that Kerri Jo could take the picture. Neither horse nor rider were thrilled about standing in the road where she thought the light was best….

    Pan Tau is a lovely and sensitive creature but he is also a stallion and when he is in a busy public place the obligation to control him can sometimes lead to discussions you would prefer not to have.

    I was shocked to see these pictures on the site,
    and when I aksed Kerri why she choose those, she said : “the better pictures I thought they were boring and less exotic looking than the
    >> others.
    I was walking on crutches at the time of the show. If I would have been able to follow them to the road, where this picture taking happened, you bet I would have stopped it!
    As for Kerri’s taste, I wonder if she will have her own horses in these “exotic” positions on her site in the near future.
    You can go to my website and see Pan Tau under “what’s new” during the show.
    Amrita

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    kerri:
    August 6th, 2007 at 9:57 am

    I have taken out the 3 photos that I took after the show was over of Pan Tau. The rest are all during the show.

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    kerri:
    August 6th, 2007 at 10:37 am

    Also – I did not try to get these photos of Pan Tau specifically, they are the ones I ended up with that were of good quality. I do have a few others, where Pan Tau looks both worse and better, but mainly are out of focus or have a bad background. I have added them to the last row.

    I just took photos. I took about the same number of both riders and these were the ones that turned out.

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    Darya:
    August 6th, 2007 at 3:23 pm

    I welcome the decision to remove some of the pictures. I found some of them rather worrying and I’m never very appreciative of such pictures as it can make people assume all Tekes are resentful and wild. So much nicer to see a Teke working in harmony and well balanced.

    I know from my own experience that stallions on a busy show are an art to handle. Congrats to everyone on a lovely show once again.

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    kerri:
    August 6th, 2007 at 5:25 pm

    I have now removed the photos that showed Pan Tau fighting with his rider during the show as well and added a row of Pan Tau in its place.

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    Leonid:
    August 6th, 2007 at 7:10 pm

    Photo of Pantau are terrible. Try to do something with so much metal on the neck. So Pantau tryes to free himself from this metal, wich keeps his neck and head. Akhalteke horses are beautiful and not need to hide them under shining trinkets. Akhalteke horses are not exotic, they are not marmosets in color fool’s caps. Akhalteke horses are universal seriose horses.

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    Dasha:
    August 7th, 2007 at 6:37 pm

    Just a quick comment on the pictures. When I meet new people and I mention to them that I have Akhal Tekes- sometimes I get a comment “those hard to ride horses”. I think it will be very useful not to have controversial pictures of Akhal Tekes because negative opinion is there and it is hard to fight. When people look at the pictures they are not necessarily evaluating the situation but judging at the spare moment. From my own prospective it took me about two month to start riding Akhal Teke 3-year old mare and it is taking almost a year and half to climb on the stallion’s back. Stallions of Akhal Teke breed is the breed of their own – can be as nice and sugary to the owner and reluctant to the stranger, I have seen it watching my Dolomite. The fact that volunteer climbed on AT stud is encouraging but maybe horse did not need to be pushed that far to feed the ego of the rider. That`s what I saw from the pictures. I don`t think it is Kerri`s fault we all know AT fans are sensitive as the horses are. I think more selection towards the character of the pictures would be a plus. Anyone want to see my pictures riding Tiki? Just kidding…

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    kerri:
    August 7th, 2007 at 8:00 pm

    Yes Dasha – put up a link of you riding Tiki!!

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