As a reminder, this blog is about a horse named Tony, a horse that Ricky is riding for the Legacy of Legends and is to be auctioned off at the 2017 event to contribute his sale money to the scholarship fund.  He is a horse that was donated by Carolyn Hunt and was out of a mare of her’s named Sweet Natural, and by the stallion Moving Easy Whiskey owned by Reata Brannaman.  He was started at the 2016 Legacy of Legends event and will have spent the year with us by the time he is sold.  His registered name is Whiskey Neat and is a 2014 colt.

July has been a month of continuation and repetition for Tony’s education.  He was ridden a lot outside in the hills to check calves out on grass.  He also loaded quite a few cattle on trucks, which was a little intimidating at first but with Ricky’s calm and confident direction and his natural easy way of going he became a pro in no time.  Ricky also continued with lots of solid roping, breakaway roping, sorting and just miles undersaddle.

Ricky spent a little bit of time working calves in good footing to really raise his expectations of Tony on cattle.  He would ride long on the cow to get it to stop and get Tony really tuned into stopping hard when the calf does. Riding long is when you ride past the “ideal” place to block the bovine, it will first stop the calf then cause them to turn back behind you and your horse.  If a person is riding outside or trying to do an actual job (or are on slick or hard ground) you won’t want to ride long as it asks more of your horse.  This exact reason is why a person would ride long when teaching your horse to really stop and turn. It asks more of them and helps them to find those big stops, turns and moves made by the calf to make up for the ground lost by riding long.  This preparation will help with the turn to be no big deal as the stop is what really shapes up things to be smooth and simple for the horse.  Tony tuned into the stops and turns very quickly and in a very pretty manner.