Elke Valentino
Elke
Valentino - #75. Grey Arabian Gelding. Appx. 15 yrs. old. 14 -
14.1 hands.
This is a very cute little gelding. He is somewhat "hot",
but I was told that if he is ridden more, he would settle down
some. He has not been ridden in quite awhile. He is registered,
but the papers are not available yet. Papers should be available
soon.
This handsome
Arabian Cross has a new home! A lovely lady named Margaret has
reached out to help this saucy little guy! I am sure that both
he and Margaret will have many hours of companionship, friendship
and love to come. Yeah Margaret!
Update
10/15/99 - Just wanted to give you an update on Val.
We are now riding. YEA! We had been lunging and ground driving
him for a couple of weeks. Then Jenny, our trainer, said I should
go saddle shopping because he was almost ready. So this week on
Tuesday she lunged him first. Then she pulled him up to the fence,
stood on the fence, and leaned on him. He stood like a rock. Then
she took him out into the middle of the arena, put one foot in
the stirrup and leaned across his back. Still stood like a rock.
In fact she tried to get him to move and he wouldn't until she
was all the way up in the saddle correctly. It's so funny because
getting him to stand still when we first started to work with
him on the ground was impossible. He would dance all over the
place. But when you're on his back, he's rock solid. Even for
me when I'm mounting from the ground (which I don't do very well
- short legs, no jumping ability, etc.)
Anyway then
she had me hold onto one rein. She was nervous that he would try
to bolt. But not my boy. She practiced turning, stopping, and
backing up and he was fine. The next night she tried to see if
she could get him to jog. He was o.k. but he thinks if you want
him to go faster, you want really faster. Then I got up and just
walked him around, turned, stopped, backed.
Last night
she tried to teach him that pulling back didn't necessarily mean
going down to a walk or stopping, that it just meant slowing the
gait he was doing. He still hasn't gotten that yet. Then she did
some work to get him to give to pressure; he was leaning into
it instead. So when I got up, I worked on giving him leg signals
as well as reins. He did fairly well. He tries so hard to please
even though sometimes he's still not sure what you what. I cannot
tell you what a good boy he really is.
Now if he
would just let me bridle him. That is the one huge battle we are
currently having. Roseann suggested a side pull. I'm open to anything;
he is so good about most things that this is obviously a big problem
for him. So I'm willing to go with something that he is comfortable
with.
I haven't
forgotten your pictures. I still haven't gotten him all cleaned
up. For one thing, he doesn't like standing on cement which most
of the wash stations are. But there is one up in the front which
was rock underneath and a rail all the way around. And surprisingly
he didn't seem to have any objections to that when Jenny and I
tried putting him into it once. And I finally got some of the
blue shampoo. And he's letting me at least brush through his tail
which had been a sore point. In fact, I brushed through it one
day, then turned him out in one of the round pens. You should
have seen him flag that tail and strut around. It was pretty hysterical.
I'm out of town this weekend so I will try to get him washed and
whitened the next weekend. Then I will take some pictures and
send them to you.
Margaret
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