Tecate is a very beautiful stallion that we bred here.  He is the son of Lacerote and out of our Quarter Horse/Appy mare Kachina.  I sold this horse about four years ago when he was around one year old to a person who said they would keep him for their child and would not be sold.  That did not happen and the owner that wound up with him got him after he went through a few trainers.  The current owner was frantic for help and came to me to plead his horse's case. 

He proceeded to tell me that the last trainer who had the horse told him to make dog food out of him and called the horse an assassin because of how he had been trained.  The last trainer told him the horse was trained from the roof down and not the foundation up and the horse had been taught a variety of high school moves more or less as tricks which the horse used as evasions.  The owner said the horse had even cornered him in the stall and struck him in the head.  He went on to tell me (as did other people who knew the horse and cleaned his stall) that he regularly reared at the stall door and to stop him he was chased in the corner with a whip and made to perform a piaffe.  I use the word piaffe to describe the movement but anyone in the classical game knows that is not a piaffe but an abomination.  All the moves must always be calm from a calm relaxed balanced horse who performs not from fear or contraction. 

Because Lacerote has such a calm and good mind, I decided to try and help.  When the horse arrived he was a sight.  As he left the trailer he tried to strike the handler in the head with both front feet and he had the wildest expression in his eye that I've ever seen in a horse.  He was afraid but he was willing to fight to the end.  After working him for a few minutes I was shocked, as one after the other he tried to use the spanish walk, piaffe, and rearing (I was told he was taught to rear!!!) to evade anything I would ask him to do.  When worked to the right, he would try and bite when he could, but I saw enough after about thirty minutes of working him to believe he had a chance so I took him only to help the owner and the poor horse who once was so kind and gentle when he left here. 

After the third day the horse tried in every conceivable way to make me fight him and used everything he could to get me.  I refused to fight with him and proceeded to only praise him when he went soft and did thing correctly.  That meant to walk calmly with none of his "tricks".  Even his spanish walk was frantic and he thrust his legs out in rapid succession more like a boxer's jab trying to strike than in the lofty way the spanish walk is intended to be performed.  Finally he just stopped fighting and from that day on we have made progress every day.  He no longer rears in the stall and I can enter and he remains calm.  I use the people who used to clean his stall and they are amazed at how much better he already is.  They said to me he is getting just as kind as the rest of our stallions.

Now yesterday for the first time (I have had him about three weeks) he worked calm in the work in hand and in the saddle with no fight and a soft look in his eye so there is hope.  Honestly, I am treating him like a horse that never been ridden and we are starting from scratch.  He seemed to have little idea of the foundation work like shoulder in or traverse, etc.  His hind end is stiff and must be supple to perform these moves correctly.  There is nothing like the true classical foundation of jaw flexions, work in hand, and the classical progression under saddle.  While I was not there when he was trained previously, however it was done, it has not turned out well for the horse or the owner so we will try and save him from the dog food company!!!

4-17 Update

5-2 Update

Well here you see the unruly Tecate and how he has changed in just five weeks of correct training , communicative lunging jaw flexions , work in hand , lateral work etc etc .  Here you can see a horse in the descent of the hand ,in self carriage , in the start of the Rassembler ( Perfect Balance ) with attentive ears and a nice demeanor all the way around . He is now working in all three gates and is improving daily  . He has a long way to go but a picture speaks a thousand words .

6-12 Update

Well now that Tecate has been in training here for about four months I can report a complete transformation of the horse in almost every way . 1. before  he tore his stall apart and hit his owner in the head with a hoof cornering him in the stall , now he stands in the stall quietly and one can go in and pet him or groom him as he stands .  2. He was very hard to bit , snaking his head and trying to bite , now he takes the bit easily with no fuss . 3. At first in the lunge and work in hand he tried to strike with his front feet and his back an all ways and angles.  The eyes were wide open showing the sclera and he was tight and explosively dangerous.  Now he does the work in hand at the walk and trot on a relaxed rein, as he does shoulder in , travers , half pass etc. On the lunge he walks around me in a soft quite way , as he does in the trot and canter turning around me on a loose line when my shoulders turn and stopping at once on the circle straight and quite as I wish  . At first under saddle he ran backwards and had no forward movement, always feeling sucked up and  always resorting to tricks as an evasion. Now he goes softly in a loose rein but with proper self carriage in all the school moves at walk and trot with an even tempo and no evasion.   He does the Piaffe quietly only when asked  as opposed to it being used as a punishment before with one of his old trainers  and is moving nicely in a soft passage he never did before ,  from the Piaffe with no contraction. His Spanish walk is now relaxed and not the frantic weapon it was , and he holds a soft collected canter and is producing now nice flying changes clean in the back, as well as the front  (before  they were clean  in the front but not behind and were much more startling for him than now  ) I would now classify Tecate as  a nice horse . We will bring him along now in the Passage and fine tune his school moves as the owner wishes .