Home Forums Gear Horses and ATV's Horses I'd like your opinions on!

Funny people are mentioning paper when it's not really necessary to trail ride or work the hills with "paper".

We fancied Quixote when we worried about paper. For the stuff indoors.

Oh, I'm not saying there are not some darn good mares out there, in fact a lot, but I figure I had to put up with all that female stuff with my wife for many years and I sure don't have to with a horse or mule.

Of course Sedonamare is excluded from this. No offense intended towards that young lady.

Agreed.

Can't ride the papers and if you're just looking for a trail horse, anything that will carry grandma thru the desert will do. If you're going to use a horse, you're going to have charactistics you're looking for. Any breeder with an idea of what they were doing bred for a type; something with a sound mind, good athletic ability, maybe some size and stature etc. The Little Peppys represent what I'm looking for in a horse. They're cowy, all day horses. I don't know much beyond QH's, but what I really like is a horse with cow and race breeding. Little Peppys are all that. Every line in him goes back to a race horse, they just happened to be cowy too.
It use to be the QH breeders raced their horses. If they were fast they might make it to the ranch next, where they had to prove their worth again. If they were fast and cowy they might keep em and bred em. Pretty good program IMO. I like horse that have proven their worth.

AS far as bell mares and pack mules are concerned, I'm with saddlesore.

This isn't directed at anyone but a compilation of comments out of the threads regarding sedonamare's horse stuff. Keep in mind she's looking for a trail horse.

I still don't see why anyone here is talking performance or cow horses. Funny how it typically morphs into I have "X", breeding or I look for "y" breeding. For a trail horse? Guys are so eager to talk how well breed their horse is for "work" yet how many make a living off the back of their pony? How many take that pony an go win money off of it?

I also hear talk of shorter the better .. don't like tall stuff...I gotta wonder.
OK so look at the papered stuff everyone mentioning.. usually 15HH give or take a bit north or south. Ok great but last I checked they are bred thick and wide. Yet no one mentions how uncomfortable it is to ride a wide horse for any length of time. Getting up and down takes only a few moments. Sitting one lasts much longer. Also these ego breeders for the cow stuff have bred for looks and performance and with looks came small feet. Hardly ever see the papered ones for cow stuff have wide, thick, heavy feet. Yet, on the trail that's whats needed.

And why again are we braggin' on papered bred for cow stuff...?

Some jackass on here even bragged he has a pony that Secratariat is the grand daddy of.. really...? for trail stuff?

Sorry boys and girls you can take all the papered cowy stuff and use it for fire starter. I want a horse bred for the hills. One that can go all day. And by go I mean up and down and around the hills. Carry a load of mountain gear. Not for a few minutes here and there during the day. I want one that has smart feet and not for cuttin' bovine. But smart feet that get placed where and when they need to. When they are traversing, climbing and descending terrain or negotiating H2O in volume.

As afar as boy vs girl. I choose and pick according to the make up and mind set. No matter if it has and inny or an outty.

Ok.. I feel better now.

+1

I always liked Baxter Black's comment when folks are talking about thier pure breds: " Mine's out of Oklahoma by truck".

Each person has partucular needs and if that perosn is looking for 1 horse,they ought to buy one that fits those needs and suits thier fancy.

Running 70 horse or so,it might not matter, but when you are only buying one that you might own or use for 15-20 years,you ought to get one you can get along with.

When I brought my first gelding back I had to board him till I got my place fenced in. It was one of those show barns where the horses cork screw into the ground. They would tell me in a round about way how my horse was no good cause he cant do certain things. I would agree with them and tell them he is not fancy but he will get you in and out of grizzly bear country safe and alive under any conditions.

I much prefer gaited horses for general riding. QH's have their place and I have one left (one died of old age) and they are great for roping and barrels and cows and all that but for the trail give me a Walker or Racking horse anyday. Would like to have a Foxtrotter down the road too.

for 'trail' with no blowdown, those'll work.... And forget spending a long day at a trot.

Lot's a people will tell others what thier horse should do or not do when the truth of the matter is that the horse needs to do what you want it to do,not what someone else thinks it should do.

Gaited horses are nice, and will get you where you want to go, but where I ride mostly, I could not take full advantage of them as Huntsmans says.
I have a litte 13&1/2 hd fox trotter john mule.Probably does not weigh 800lbs and his front end isn't 15" wide.He's pushing 30 yrs old,and rides, packs and drives. I got him as a yearling and the fellow wanted to get rid of him.I didn't want him as I thought he would be too small a frame.So the fellow runs him into my trailer with a few other mules I bought and tells me if he amounys to anything, send him what I think he is worth.I sent him $700 a few years later.

This mule never had a quit in him,hauled my butt over more mountains than I can remember, packed camp, gear, and elk in and out, hauled a milk wagon 9 miles twice a day when he went to the Amish to train for harness. You can't ever tell how they will end up that is for sure. He sure has gotten independant in his old age though.

Here's what he does.

Agreed.

That's a good piece of advice

Also see if they're able to just saddle them up and go off, some horses no matter how broke they are need to be rode down some.


See them ride the horse, as they're the ones used to riding it. It's good to ride yourself obviously, but don't expect the horse to behave always as good as for the person they're used to.

Check the teeth, study up on what to look at as far as hooves go and how what type of shape their in. A horse is as only good as it's feet.

Pastern angle(s), pigeon toed or splay footed. A lot of horses will naturally get a little pigeon toed as they age, but problem can occur if they're splay footed.



As far as mares vs geldings? I agree and disagree, we implant our mares we use every spring. Sure does keep the attitudes in check.

My trail mares been a Willywood mare, bought her as a weanling. She's eight this year, she's always done anything I've asked her to. She's acted up now and than, but up until this past weekend she's never once bucked.

Working her in the arena and she started in, wouldn't have been a big deal but when I went to pull her head in/up my right rein broke and threw my balance off. Took a quick visit to the dirt after that.

She got a little education after that and hopefully she doesn't do it again. The ground seems to be a lot harder and further away than it used to be.

Saddlesore,
Nice post. That John has earned the right to have three bells and a bob on his tail. I have had good luck with small mules for riding and packing. And small horses too.

I have never owned a mare, but had a great molly mule out of a Missouri Fox Trotter. She had an extra gear at the walk (flat walk) that made the horse people shake their heads. I never got her to gait at the trot, but she was smooth enough to sit for long periods. She would go into heat even though she was sterile. She was distracted but not that hard to control even around studs.

The most important (and most difficult) thing for a an equine owner is selecting the animal. Don't waste your time with animals that have serious flaws.

ppine.I found to get walker mules to gait,you have to work at it.I was succesful at getting them to trot on a hard surface like a hard dirt road, and then hold them in with thebit bit,while still asking them to trot.
Don't know if that was the correct method,but it worked for me.

Here is a big walker, molly mule I had years ago that went almost 16 hds. Way too tall for me.You can see my feet don't even come down to the bottom of her chest. I forget why I had my feet forward, it was 15 yrs ago or more.

They do more than just gait ya know. There are very few if any 1/4's that'll keep up.

Our will work, cattle drag a calf, pack a load and pert near take you anywhere poundin' mountains. When the trail allows they'll flat out and literally walk away from the 1/4's and such. All with no spine protruding through the back of your skull.

yep hard surfaces help with the gait. There are ways to gait beside driving them into a shanked bit.
It they are relaxed and supple and naturally gaited they will gait. However, the gait comes from the hind end propulsion. So in order to help them find the hind end... loping them to relax will help the gait come around.

Ans SS.. you are on the money. If you drive em hitched to a stone bolt or anything for that matter for a few months. You'll see the gait come easily.

This walker mule I showed was a ground covering mule. My present halflinger mule,I started off rding her with my buddy who has a walker mule identical to the one I showed. My mule learned to keep up with him and now she is a ground covering mule also. At times,I wish I could slow her down some. I'm getting there as she ages. Found out,I just don't need to get places as fast as I use to.

An aside story. The fellow I bought that big walker mule from was down in NW NM, a fellow named Doyle Hill.He passed away several years ago, but he had a string of walker mares and 1/4 horse mares, probably about 20 each. He bred to his nice jacks and made some dandy mules. I bought several from him as weanlings and yearlings over the years which I raised, trained, and sold.

This walker mule I showed, a guy came and bought her and he was in a full leg cast with a broken leg when he rode her to check her out before buying her.She was that calm. He was a sight swinging that cast over her back. I think the walkers turn out a calmer dispositioned mule than quarter horse mule.At least all the ones I raised were.

Between walkers and 1/4 horse mules, the cowboys in AZ, NV, and NM would buy up Doyle's walkers as fast as they hit the ground as they could cover the ground faster than the 1/4 horse mules.They liked the mules to work cattle with as they could withstand that desert heat better than a horse and you didn't have to change them out at noon or the next day. To buy one off Doyle,you had to give him 1/3 down when he bred the mare,and he guaranteed you would get a mule. So you had to wait a year until it was born and then another 4 months or so until it was weaned to get your mule. You could buy a 1/4 horse mule right off though.

There is a Mexican fellow down near the old ghost town of Riley NM, SW of Belin near the Ladrone mountains that works his ranch entirely with those big tall walker mules.

Okie just mentioned he liked the Little Peppys which I strongly agree with. Peppy San Badger was for a time the cornerstone of the King ranch breeding program. King Ranch, one of the largest cattle ranches in the known universe, produced horses that had a job before it was even bred. Thats a horse bred for purpose. Theres no discounting the comfort of a gaited horse, but we can take the Little Peppys out of the sandbox only catagory. No horse has been bred for work more than them. I can't judge a horse over the internet, but I do know what I like in a horse. In that regard I'll offer an opinion and Little Peppys match what I like in a horse.