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OUR PROBLEM HORSES

TEQUILA SUNRISE:  15hh bay mare

Judging by her papers and rather official sounding name, Tequila Sunrise was probably bred by a serious breeder.  Well-bred horses used to make good money.

All we know for certain is that she was sold to her next owner when she was 4 years old, was probably nicely schooled and very well-behaved.  The problem was, she hadn't been trained for hacking, and that's what her new owner wanted to do.

It wasn't long before Tequila started misbehaving.  Her new owner wasn't used to hacking out on a young, hot-blooded thoroughbred.  She was more used to the ploddy type.  Tequila made her feel nervous.  And within the first few weeks, the trouble started.

By the time she was 7 years old, no-one dared ride Tequila any more.  As soon as anyone got on her back, she reared up and fell over backwards.  Three short years is all it took to turn Tequila from a well-behaved Thoroughbred into an unrideable horse.

When she came to us, she was scared out of her wits by almost everything, except normal, every-day handling - like catching, grooming and tacking up.  Her manners were impeccable, unless she found herself tied up, and then all hell broke loose.  Terrified by change of any kind, she would revert to the wild beast that nobody could ride.  Like 5 seconds away from her friends and shut into a stable, sent her careering madly round it, looking desperately for a way out.

The strange thing was, she was a lovely ride.  Nicely forward going, but very controllable.  And absolutely bomb-proof in traffic.  That was a surprise.  For a horse that was so nervous of everything else, I did expect a few reactions to things like lorries and motor-bikes.  But not a bit of it.  She wasn't even bothered by road-works or plastic bags in the hedge.  She just obligingly followed the straight-line forward - and never reared again!

I knew we had an exceptional horse, but we had a long way to go.  She had so many fears and insecurities, every step of the way was a compromise.  A little bit of what she wanted, in return for what we wanted.  Eventually, we got her jumping.

She was a clever little horse.  First she tried taking the wrong line and bolting past a fence.  When that failed, she tried the "stop at the last minute" trick.  When that didn't work, she gave in, but from that day forward, she would never jump anything big without her little take-off kick!

We made it as far as novice Horse Trials, which I though was more than enough for a 15 year old horse who'd had a hard life.

 


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