Our development [2010 - 2015]

A lot went wrong with Estella. She was broken to young and had to walk in riding lessons with beginner. That was very bad for her spirit and her body. But we also made many mistakes and we didn't realized how bad she looked that time.

Here's a part of her story we've already written down a while ago:

(2009) They broke her with 2 1/2 years, a half year later she had to do sliding stops (but never with us). This may doesn't sound that bad, but andalusian horses grow until five, so with three she was very fragil and looked like a half foal.
She was used as a school horse for western riding lessons, often with side reins (Ausbindern) and with beginner.
We also rode her in the riding lessons and fell in love with her. My mum has also liked her, so she bought Estella! A dream came true!💖
We made so much plans!
At that time, we were 11 jears old and just rode around, mostly fun stuff and outside! We also rode her "dressage", but we didn't know much about muscles and how to gymnasticate a horse correctly. But Estella was happy and had fun and we had a nice time in that stable.
The real problem were the riding lessons.. Even when we had already bought her, she had to walk in riding lessons. Her old owner only selled her when she continiue to walk in the riding lessons a few times per week.. We mostly didn't saw it, but we heard some horrible things later.
(2012) We changed the stable, so she don't had to walk in lessons anymore. It was the best decicion!
But now all the problems came up again. She had lost the fun in being ridden, she didn't want to walk anymore, she was broken. We had real troubles to get her in gallop or to ride a straight line. We looked at Estella and thought she could never 'dance'. (How wrong we were!)
Different riding teachers couldn't help us and then a doctor diagnose spinal ataxia (google knows 😆; Spinale Ataxie in deutsch) and that we can't ride her anymore because it's too dangerous.
It was a nightmare.
Many told us to sell her and some even said she isn't right in her mind and should go to the slaughter. One day a woman from the stable came and said: "I can't understand why your parents allow you to ride this horse! It's too dangerous." No! The world broke down. Estella has always been our everything, we didn't want to give up on her!
It was hard to find a riding teacher because the most didn't want to teach such a dangerous horse, because of the RISK.
Then we finally found a riding teacher. She rides classical dressage after Phillipe Karl (l'école de légèrté). It was really different. Instead of telling us we should use spurs and wips until Estella goes forward, she let us ride and watched. She said, Estella has lost all her energie and impulsion and it has to come back until we start with riding dressage again. But we can't force it, it has to come from herself, so it's on us to give her the motivation back.
We didn't ride any dressage or in the riding area for months. We only went outside, did fun stuff, lunging and exercises to build up muscles.
Then we started her again, with the age of six, but this time in classical dressage.
It was strange and different for all the western and dressage rider and whenever something is different the people watch and talk. But we didn't stop, even if it was very hard.
It didn't seem to go forward with Estella. The riding teacher told us, Estella was one of the most difficult horse in dressage she ever had.
How she walked and how she reacted to aids was completely wrong so Estella had to learn it all right.
But after one year you could really see a difference and now, after over two years, it's incredible. She might cannot do flying changes or different dressage exercices.. but she becomes so sensible and instead of fighting against it she works with us and is proud and happy. We always hated dressage but now the whole thing started to make fun.
Her whole body and her movement completely changed! Another doctor told us, she hasn't spinal ataxia, the old doctor was wrong..! We don't want to know what would have happend if we haven't found our wonderful riding teacher..
We've always done liberty work, but the last years there came more system into it and with her better muscles it worked better. But we always thought Estella would never jump around.. She used to have no motivation, and ran away and ate all the time.
It's so much better now!
Everything is good now?
Mostly it is.. But we can still feel the consequences of all the years and sometimes we nearly cry. To see other horses with death and lethargic eyes reminds us on her. It's so sad how they break young horses until they work as machines. We made mistakes we will never do again and so I hope for you.
We love you, little Tely ❤

Видео Our development [2010 - 2015] канала NativeHorse