Selling Kasey was not a difficult decision but it did take a while for the right person to come along. When I bought him as a five-year-old, he wasn't halter-broke – and while he was quite friendly and calm at Kelly Acres, where he grew up, the five-hour haul to Edmonton (where I was living at the time) turned out to be very traumatizing, even though he came with a buddy from back home. It literally took three months before he stopped shying away from the people brining him his hay twice a day, poor guy! I had never owned a cob before. Though I'm used to hot horses in the Arab/TB sense, this 'calm on the surface but explosive underneath' temperament was something new - you learn very quickly to pay close attention to his breathing, since lots of times the fact that he was holding his breath was the only clue that something was wrong!
About this time I came across the new 'clicker-training' methods and decided to try them out. Using the clicker, I taught him to pick up his feet for a reward. The very first session went very well and he caught on right away to picking up both front feet. In fact, he learned it so quickly that to this day, he will pick up a front foot and wave it in the air when he wants a treat. He learned it so fast and so persistently I was a little leery to try and clicker-train him for anything else... (Apologies to real clicker-trainers, I know there are methods around this but I never got to them!)
About the time I started riding him, I realized I would have a lot of fun training him but we just didn't physically fit together well enough to be serious competition material. In fact, my long legs and his round barrel are pretty much as good a mis-match as you can find... which is why I'm so happy his new rider Lorna is a little bit shorter and fits him to a T, both in the saddle and personality-wise. In fact, I would say his tendencies to be a one-woman horse have already transferred over to her. I'm a little bit sad but I'll get over it - I don't think he could have found a better home for himself.
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In other news, I gave two presentations on the internet and web marketing at the Alberta Horse Breeders' and Owners' conference last weekend (Jan 11-13). Hopefully they managed to get some useful information out there. I'm curious to see the feedback and am hoping conference organizers will be able to give me some comments they received... stay tuned.
The best presentation at the conference was Mr. Jim Babckock, owner of Smart Chic Olena. Though I don't really follow Quarter Horse lines myself, I've always remembered a profile that Horse & Rider did in the 1990's about Reminic (right), another one of the Babcock stallions. He seemed like a really neat horse. And, for a Quarter Horse, he has *huge* ears that stand straight up, which seem to give him a lot of personality :) Mr. Babcock's biggest point was that, not only do you have to have a business plan that will make you money in the horse business, you have to create opportunities for those that follow your bloodlines to make money as well. As an example, he talked about a prominent stallion whose stud fee remained at about $1000 even though he was hugely popular. People with sons of the stallion had a hard time selling their stud services, because why would you breed to a son when you could have the main guy himself? So, he explained, with Smart Chick Olena's stud fee set at an amazing $25,000, he makes room for the smaller breeders who want to invest in Smart Chick Olena's sons. He's also got a very interesting mare lease program going that "guarantees to make money" (how often do you hear that in this business??) that you can check out on his website. Smart guy.
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