Zelly is the very definition of ‘looks good for her age.’ At 20, she is no spring chicken, but her physical condition and her mental acuity show a horse who still has a lot left in the tank.
When first assessing Zelly on the ground, we met a horse who was clearly very used to going through the motions. She had a kind of robotic way about the way she would respond to what was being asked of her, as if she was flipping through a rolodex of potential responses instead of really thinking and feeling it through. There was a lot of anxiety associated with this as well – when asked to walk out on a circle, she felt that she had to trot. She was nervous about the flag, and pushy about asking for breaks, coming in with an anxious energy instead of looking for peace. It was clear to us that the majority of her previous interactions with people had been purely operational, not based off of feel.
But Zelly is an incredibly smart horse with a lot of try, and if there’s one thing we are confident of, it’s in a horse’s ability to make a change.
Under saddle, the time Zelly spent as a kid’s horse made itself known. All the Graham horses were reluctant to move out, and Zelly was no exception. It was clear that she had called a lot of the shots in her time, because her expression turned sour as soon as she was asked for more than a walk. Going up into the canter, she expressed her displeasure by kicking out – which would certainly have been enough to deter kids from asking in the past. We are not as easily intimidated. But we also wanted to show Zelly that she would be rewarded for her lope. Once she entered the gait, her rider would release, showing her that she was doing the right thing. It was important for us not to nag her once she was loping, so she learned that all she had to do was lope up to get a release.
She also struggled with bending. At first, even the slightest ask to bend either direction resulted in her yanking her head away. If the only thing you wanted to do was walk a line that she put you on, Zelly was over qualified for the position. But it was clear that a different tactic was required to help her understanding. So we backtracked a bit, taking her out of the snaffle and back into the halter, working on gradual increases to the amount of bend we asked for, and waiting patiently until she stopped pushing against the pressure and turned loose to it. This is one smart mare, and it didn’t take long at all before she had a better understanding of what we were asking for.
It’s been a real pleasure watching this mare learn and grow, and while she still has a bit of work to do, we are confident that she’s going to be a great match for someone one day soon.
