Mr. Chip Star

For the past week I have been keeping myself busy. My Nanny was able to come over everyday, so I took advantage of that. She would come over and I would leave to go and see Mr. Chip Star. He is an AQHA gelding. He is pretty neat. He is a son of Zip Chocolate Chip. He is bred out the wah-zoo, but some how he missed the boat on some things. You see, Chip, has a really bad club foot and he is really downhill. But he is a fun little horse to ride. He hasn't been really worked with for five months, and the two years before that he was only ridden a couple times a month. It was really fun riding him and finding out some of his buttons.

I found out that Chip does not like to stand on the rubber mats. I am not sure why. I can move him over so he is standing on them and he will stay there for a moment but if I walk away he moves right back over to the side. He is a funny guy. He also only wears one bell boot because his club foot is under construction.

Then we are off. Chip has the most wonderful jog. You can droop your reins from here to Texas and he wouldn't change a thing. I could jog on him all day long. You can even get him to long trot with the greatest of ease.

Such a fun boy. But then there is his lope. He falls apart at the lope. If I would keep my reins all droopy, Chip would take off at lightning speeds. Okay not exactly lightning speeds, but faster than a pleasure horse should go.

So, in order to get him framed up I have to collect him a tad. He needs to learn to use his rear end a bit more, then I think he would be able to slow down a bit and stay collected better.

Here he finally is using his rear end. I think some good old work in a snaffle bit would do him some good. We are going to work on that this week. All this should be a refresher coarse for Chip. He was at a professional trainer for six months. I have been trying hard to figure out all his buttons.

I rode with two of my friends. We also had a paint stud named "Blue" out for a ride. This stud has no idea he is a stallion. Blue can't hear either. That horse is pure lazy. The girl riding him there was trying to get him to lope off and was cuing him and kissing. We all laughed because he can't hear her kissing to him. So, I told her to let me pass by at a lope and maybe he would think he should lope off too. I know bad habit to start, but the poor girl just couldn't get the lazy boy to go. She eventually got him to lope off. There is something special about Blue. He is very willing and laid back. The girl who normally rides him wants to show him in APHA horse shows. She is going to be showing Open. That is with all the pros. I think Blue can do that, but the only problem is that Blue is trained to go around the pen like an Arabian western pleasure horse. He looks cute, but that won't cut it in APHA shows. I rode him for a little bit and tried to see if I could get him to relax his neck down. That was about as relaxed as I could get it. But Blue tried. He is such a good boy. I am really hoping to be able to ride a bit this week too. I think it's funny that I drive 25 minutes to go and ride a horse when I have a ton of them in my backyard. It is nice to be able to ride with friends.