Friend of mine who has given up roping because of his age sold me his head and heel horse for a damn good price just because he wanted the right person to have him..I couldn't turn it down and bought the horse sight unseen, well I saw him when he was a 2year old..He is now 10 years old and finished on the head and heel side. He arrived from Ft. Summner New Mexico yesterday thanks to a girl who was coming this way from College in New Mexico and that saved me a trip..

When he came out of the trailer I realized what a great deal Alan had given me and can't express how much I appreciate it...I had to peddle my best custom rifle at a discount to afford him, but I can triple my money any day on this good boy, but he will no doubt die on my place..He is kind and gentle sort, can run a hole in the win, smart of mind, and quick on his feet, pays attention to everything around him, I am convienced that he will be everything I could want in a horse.

Roped a few steers off him both heading and heeling and he is top notch, I'll be working some cattle on him next week in some rough country and I'm thinking he will be my primary rope horse and my older rope horse will be my back up horse..

He is a red dun gilding, with a black stripe down his back, and stripped front legs, really a pretty boy..His name is "HESA SKIPPERS DOC" and goes back to Doc bars, Spanish Depth and Bartender on the top and Doc Gambrel and Docs Oak and Irish Carmal Bar on the bottom.

My old and best horse that I had to put down a few months ago was the last liveing son of the great Docs Oak..

It will take me a few months to get together with him as usual, I will have to upgrade my reflexes to rope quicker, and I expect great things out of him and myself in the roping arena. The kids will be makeing a tie down and break a way calf horse out of him I'm sure, and wouldn't be surprised if the girls don't start running barrels on him soon! they always do that with my rope horses!!

I do believe that a horse should have more than one job and all mine eventually learn to do it all..

I don't have the skills to post pictures on AR..sorry about that.

Gidday Ray

Nice to see you got a "new cobber", man it helps if you ride a horse you like and respect.

Our family always reckoned you shouldn't pay any attention to a horses colour but then they were always trying for Dun mares when we were breeding cause "a Dun will always give you that little bit more and then some" so figure that one - and I have two Dun Q/Hs on the place right now. One is a little mare I've just started, she's on day 10 and hasn't put a foot wrong yet.

Don't forget to slow that boy down a bit for a start, I see so many people asking too much of a horse that doesn't know them too well - but you've probably forgotten more about horses than I'll ever know !!

Regards and if you send me a picture to foveauxsailor@gmail.com I'd love to see it and will post it for you.

Foster

Ive owne many horses over the years and when it comes to toughness I also have noticed Dunns, Buckskins and blue roans seem to have that something extra, maybe a gene in the breeding that has held true thru the years?? Be glad to send you a picture to post. Many thanks.
Ray

Here he is . . . nice looking boy, and just about all the Duns I've seen have that nice soft eye.


Foster

Nice looking horse.

Yoo Hoo.

Now that's a great looking horse.

He is going to make as good a horse as I have ever owned for what I do, and thats rope calves and team rope steers..

He isn't perfect yet, and has two issues that a 10 year old should not have, one is he charges out the trailer backwards to hard and could hurt someone and if he is tied in the trailer he falls back hard on the haulter, the other is if you tie him and attempt to worm him or give him a shot he comes back hard on the haulter..and I'll have that fixed soon enough, in fact he and I had a Come to Jesus meeting this morning, when the dust cleared I stuck the womer in his mouth and he never moved a muscle, and he calmed down almost instantly, so he is smart..

He is nice to rope on, right now he is a better head horse than a heel horse but he is good enough on the heels..He has a good enough handle,that I will improve on and can run a hole in the wind..

I predict that he will be awesome in probably 30 to 60 days, as we figure out each other..I will be roping again tomarrow on him..Basically he has been spoiled a bit, but all can and will be fixed, its time for him to be a big boy and he now has a job..

Not sure what the cure for that stuff is, but might be cause he'a never had to stand patiently. Sounds spoiled for sure.

My latest mule was fidgeting when tied up after I bought her. A couple days of leaving her tied up for five or six hours has cured most of it. More extended time at the hitch rail is in her future.

Maybe ??

Charge out of the trailer too hard while backing up, I've seen this on horses that had prior training for reining during volunteers roundup of cattle to be trained for roping and light steer tripping.
Was the gelding a reiner too? Cutter maybe?

My new 4 yr mare also charged out of the trailer backwards hard. She has a pretty good mind. I would talk to her & take my time untying her. Then make her stand there a minute & restrain her from blasting out.
She tiptoes out now

He has been a rope horse all his life from about 4 years old, but he isn't where he should be, like all horses he is a product of his rider....I'm pretty sure his dislike for the trailer is from some trama early in his life, as usual with horses the are the product of the owner, they are not born to most bad habits..

I have been working with him and its been a tussle, but the other day he turned and walked out frontwards just as calm as could be got out one foot at a time, I looked at him for awhile and said, "Ok, my man let just do it your way and get on about our business"...No problems since..

One thing I have learned in a lifetime of breaking and training horses, is that in "some cases" its easier for the man to change than a horse to change. You need to pick your fights carefully. I won the worming fight, he won the trailer fight, I can live with that for now and in time may ease into a change and get him comming out slowly..Its hard to change this problem as you can't pull on the rope or tie him loose, as he backs up out of a trailer, as a horses head comes up when you pull or tie and then can crack his skull in a trailer.

Roped a dozen steers last night, then heeled 5 or 6 and he did Ok, got a ways to go, but he is smart and catches on quickly, he is absolutly broke and easy to be around..I am changing some things on him, and he and I will get together in a short time..These changes don't happen overnight.

So far, I am pretty high on this horse, and if someone doesn't come along and offer me a gold mine for him he will be an awesome rope horse in a few months..

The kids really like him, and he may end up my daughters calf roping and team roping horse, the best ones usually do.

Ray, Hope you have good luck with your trailer issues. I have several i raised that will walk out foward,no problems but when they have to back out they get claustrophobic and run backwards untill their feet hit the ground. This is especially true when there is a rear tack compartment. I have spent a lot of time and effort trying to solve this and it's slightly better but no real breakthroughs.One thing that seems to help is to load and unload repetitively untill they are sick of running back.

Good luck,Fred

AZ,
Its taken some time but I would load him, then using a bugy whip or stick what ever I would back him out with the whip touching his butt. I would allow him to take two or three steps then touching his hocks with the whip to make him stop..I did this keeping him backing out slow for about 5 or 6 times a day for about a week, and he figured it out and he is fixed...He loaded good but just wanted to run out backwards real hard, I just had to slow him down. He aways unloaded frontwards, but sometimes I may have 4 horses in a trailer and I need them to back out..Also I have seen horses scalp themselves coming out frontwards in a panic as they tend to toss the head up and hit the top of the trailer because the person leading them pulled on the lead rope, when you pull on the lead rope, a frightened horse tends to toss his head up. That is why I work on the hocks with a whip or cane, whatever, and try to keep a loose reign and stay off the head. It works as well loading.

Loading I will run a long rope up to the front of the trailer somewhere and back to me standing behind the horse. I will then tug gently on the head to aim him in the trailer but I don't pull on the rope, when facing the entrance and standing I switch his lower hocks lightly with the whip, and he will jump in.. Done correctrly It takes about 30 to 45 minutes to teach a horse to load in this manner and usually one session is enough and he will load for life, sometimes two sessions on a problem horse..

It really works, I learned this many years ago and not from my cowboy family and friends but from an old Yankee race horse trainer. He also taught me about leads and other things, he was truly a horseman, his name was Bill Stransky.

Spent a lot of time on this horse, he is certainly a looker, but in the end he just didn't work out for me..He simply couldn't run for whatever reason, Im thinking he was a little too straight in the shoulders..He was fun to rope off on slow steers at a practice but you couldn't win money on him as he was always late on the corner and got you into the fence. Hated it because he was so damn pretty...Sold him and got another horse and this one is a real winner, been to the BFI 3 times and does his job..He is 17 and healthy and fits me to a T...couple of guys said "he is pretty old doesn't that worry you"...Guess they haven't checked my papers, I doubt I'll last as long as this good horse will! I'll be 80 when he is 18!

Use to have an Appy mare that was a wreck waiting to happen when I wormed her....
Got the bright idea to put molasses on the outside of the syringe and put it in front of her she would nibble than take the whole thing in her mouth it was then very easy to depress the syringe and give her the worming med....

Why did all great Indian chiefs ride Appy's into battle...????
cause by the time they got there they would be so mad that they would kill everything in sight...

That and it was the olny breed of horse they could run down and catch on foot!

Love the Appy jokes. I used to get a kick out of listening to them and then watching them stand open mouthed while my horse smoked them. Lot's of good horses across the breed spectrum today because lots of horse have been crossed to get them. I had an Appaloosa Mare that ran 19's in the Poles back in the 1980's. The only 19 I have ever seen run poles and certainly the only one I have ever ridden on. Lot's of 20's and 21's but a 19 is something. Low 20's win the AQHA world championships today quite often. Once in a while a 19 something shows up. She was gentle, kind and could and would do anything I asked her to. She had no equal in the show pen. Her older brother was never outran and was a World class head horse too. He would take your breath away on a straight away. Very fast in the barrels too. Only my youngster mistakes cost us the titles. Too darned fast for poles. He simply moved faster forward than one could guide laterally. I retired him elk hunting in Colorado and buried him on my family land there when pain overcame him. His sister rests here asleep on my land in KS. Two finer and faster horses have never lived. I firmly believe they await me in Heaven. If you believe otherwise, please just leave me to my faith. The Lord is merciful. His Grace is everlasting. I only want a stable cleaning job in Heaven where two white horses await me each morning. I will be content.

Never heard that about duns. Should be interesting to find out. One of my mares dropped a dun colt last May and I'm thinking it may be my next main ride when it grows up.

Pretty baby that one.

I don't know what you mean when you say you've never heard "this" about duns unless your talking about my statement that the horse was too straight in the shoulders, which can effect his ability to run sometimes. that has nothing to do with color, it could be in his breeding or it could just be a defect. IMO I have found blue and dunn horses to normally be some of the toughest of horses, for whatever reason I can't explain..

I ask a lot out of a rope horse and if he can't win, he goes down the rode to a kid or someone interested in a nice broke pleasure horse.

quote:

I also have noticed Dunns, Buckskins and blue roans seem to have that something extra,

I had just never hear that color made a horse tougher. But I'm hoping this colt has that extra something

PH,
That is nothing more than an observation on my part, but over my 80 years I have come to believe there is something to that, but color can be in the breeding and if combined with either, you might end up with a color in your tough horses. That's why I add "for whatever reason"..who knows.