$10 and 6 Hours

Sun May 6, 2007

My friend from the barn (w/the Paint) and I drove across the State of Michigan to attend the Northern Michigan Horse Expo (3 day event, but we just went Friday)...3 hours to get there through some GORGEOUS Northern Michigan landscapes. I've never EVER been to that part of the State, and it's beautifully WILD...no billboards, no cell towers, no power lines, just HUGE old trees and wilderness...we even drove through a little town that touts itself as "The Elk Capital of Michigan", and their Visitor's Center had a full body mounted Bull Elk in a showcase outside the building (poor thing looked a bit sun-faded, lol).

Of course the Expo was teeny tiny and pathetic compared to anything like Equine Affaire or Equitana or even the one in Lansing I went to in March, but still, the fact it was Up North was excitement enough. They had a pretty good vendor/shopping area set up in a practice hockey rink, and even though I THOUGHT I bought everything I thought I'd need in Lansing, of course I found more stuff, LOL! The neatest thing was one lady selling magnetic number holders for your show numbers! Super-strong magnets (decorated with silver & rhinestones) that hold the show number to your shirt or coat. I kind of balked at the $17 price tag for four little bling-bling magnets, but what the hell, and got a set with little pearls in the center (more subdued for Huntseat). Glad I did, because the woman SOLD OUT within 10 minutes!! There was another vendor selling them for $30/set! No thanks! So, I'm happy about that, and I just pray I don't lose 'em somewhere!!

They didn't have demos or stallions or exhibitions per se, just two trainers giving seminars...one was Ken McNabb of RFD-TV fame, and the other was Stacy Westfall (A 2006 "Road To The Horse" competitor). Despite the agonizing concrete benches and the COLD ice hockey arena environment, we sat through all 4 of their seminars (90 min each, YOW!), from colt starting to problem horses to more colt starting to Q&A. I learned a LOT, and my friend was ecstatic because she's been having horrible issues with her dominant/aggressive 9 month old QH filly at home! I took a lot of mental notes & could hardly wait to try everything out on poor Quzqo, heh heh.

Cripes, we didn't get back until Midnight, and had an exciting drive home which included seeing a Black BEAR standing on the side of the highway, and being detoured by cops due to a major accident and downed power lines!

Yesterday I tried out some of my new knowledge on Coos, and it all worked like MAGIC, including finally being able to lunge him to the right and him changing his direction with just me pointing (otherwise I had to walk up to him, turn him to the right, walk him in that direction, and THEN send him off, and he'd switch back to the left after a few strides because he didn't WANT to go to the right for some deep-seated phobic reason I haven't figured out yet). But after about 5 minutes of working with halter and stick-and-string, he'll shoot to the right whenever/however I ask!

I also used Westfall's technique to get Himself to stand still for mounting and NOT go walking off before my butt is in the saddle...mostly using flexing and bending and, well, keeping his head cranked to the left so he CAN'T walk off, LOL! It worked like a DREAM...three times!

Haven't tried their method for making a pokey lazy horse move his butt along yet, but that day will come!

Definitely worth 6 hours of driving and the $10 admission!

And my friend reported that she tried some of the lunging and desensitization techniques on her filly yesterday morning, and made GREAT progress, even so that the filly walked up to her, licking and chewing and stood quietly instead of charging with ears pinned!

It's so neat when the lightbulb goes on...in horse AND human!