April
News
2009
Seminar with Honza Blaha at the Ranch Wolf
At 27th and 28th of June 2009
As we like to work with our Curly Horses on a high standard which is appropriate to each horse, we try to orientate ourselves to the world’s best Horsemen and teachers. Right now we managed to invite the Czech Horseman Honza Blaha to a seminar with our Curly Horses. We admire his individual and unique style of dealing with horses. In a perfect presentation at the Equitana 2009, he presented and introduced stepwise to the audience his four horses that are on completely different education levels. At this presentation he also explained, how important it is to use individual training based on the character and the natural precondition of each horse for education. It is amazing that Honza was pleased to accept our invitation to the Ranch Wolf. We are really looking forward to his visit and hope to learn from his experiences.
The overall ten positions for the seminar are already booked out. As we already have many people who are interested in participating in the theoretical part of the seminar and for audience as well, we need to have additional applications as early as possible because of course the number of those participants is limited as well. The participation as a visitor on Saturday and Sunday from 9-12 a.m. and
2-5 p.m. costs 35 € per day. registration forms
Honza Blaha is a Horseman dealing with the mutual combination of natural communication and sportive riding. You can watch him on many international events and shows. Honza lives in the south of Bohemia in the Czech Republic together with ten horses including the famous Gaston. Once, Gaston used to be an ordinary Czech warm blood with a height of 150cm. But anyway, in this little horse lives the heart of a giant combined with an unbroken will. Together, Gaston and Honza travelled whole Europe and the USA.
You can watch Honza on seminars whole around Europe. He does not only train advanced students but also absolute beginners in riding: ”Generally, learning things correctly from the beginning is much easier than relearn it later” he thinks.
One of his favorite disciplines in riding during his free time is “jumping”. His two most promising jumping horses on tournaments are Mirco (Holsteiner born in 2000) and Conte (Oldenburger born in 2004). Besides Gaston the delicate but lively araber Maxim (born in 2000) takes also part in national and international shows. Soon it might be possible that the Spanish PRE stallion Quorum will also get his chance to be part of the show. Besides the shows, Honza deals with the education of sport horses, starting up young horses and advising people in buying horses.
An absolutely new tool of his education program and an improvement is the work on an online encyclopedia connecting videos, assays and pictures. You can find step by step everything in there what Honza is teaching and probably even more. Honza Bláha
Synchronous with three horses
I had the big pleasure to watch Honza on the Equitana 2009 in his evening show. I have never seen such a harmony within human and horse which you could almost feel. Due to his brave and pleasant type and funny reactions and comments, his program never turned boring.
I came, saw and was amazed
The biggest prove of trust for a horse as a fleeing animal is that position on the back which is shown on the left hand side. How much time, patience, love and experience is necessary to achieve such a result with my Curly Horse?
Curly persons of the month
Congratulation!!
We (Fredi 7, Jojo 5 , we are sisters) are riding at the Erlenhof with Gina since a half year. We really like to ride Carmalitta and Tamzara and we are enjoying riding very much.
The Curly Horse seminar from the 17th to the 19th of April 2009 was great. We wrote a little test each day about what we learned before and we even got marks for it (we had “1” and “2”!). We did ground and communication work as well as riding. We divided into two groups: The children belonged to the Tamzara-group, the grown-ups to the funny-group.
Jojo once climbed into a barrel and hided there and every time a Curly went by, she went up and said “buh” to frighten the horses. Canada even went back 5 steps! Chihiro was not frightened because she had already seen Jojo before. It was so funny!
During the ground and communication work we worked with Kawa and he was supposed to go onto the old platform. He first sniffed at it but then he put one foot after the other on it. For this we needed string halter, string, stick and a bit of patience. We also helped to clean the stable and to control the large paddocks. The other children were very nice.
On the last day we went to nature for riding and all horses led with strings. When we passed Levi’s paddock, Levi started to show off and ran along the fences. Gina and Petra are great teachers.
Unfortunately, we don’t get our father on a horse as he prefers mountain-bike riding. But Dad likes horses, is able to lead Curlys and helps to brush them before riding perfectly.
Achieving the aim playfully
As Jojo and Fredi, children have the perfect prerequisites for a natural contact with horses. They solved the tasks they were asked for with different Curly Horses quite smart and with fun. During the whole three days whether the concentration nor the joy decreased although the contents of the seminar were originally thought for older children.
Curly Horse seminar Tamzara and Funny was finished successfully and everybody survived!
Impressions of participants
“All my hopes for this seminar and expectations have been exceeded. The different points were presented convincing and with enthusiasm which led to a deep insight into your method. You showed much empathy not only with your horses but also with your students. One subject was based on the next one. Keep at it!”
“My favourite horse is Funny Face, because she is hard to ride and looks so funny. I liked the seminar very much especially lunch. I hoped that we could have more time for free riding.”
“The ground and communication work was great as well as the information on horses and on keeping of horses. The group of participants was very harmonically. Like- and open-minded self confident people met at this seminar. It was great, thank you!”
“Watching the working style of the most different people with the most different horses was exciting and I never thought that this type of dealing with horses would work. I need to change my mind. Going into nature for riding on such a beautiful Sunday was a great idea. I have never seen a playground for horses before. The time just flew by. It was fantastic to have a complete cut-off from normal working day life and to dive into a completely different world. I would really like to continue riding lessons here - if that is possible?”
“I simply liked the complete seminar and it exceeded my expectations. The teachers were great how it should be. Concerning the horses I liked Chihiro, Tamzara and Carmalitta most and the foals are so cute.”
“I liked the seminar very much and I learned a lot of new things. The teachers were nice and I liked to do ground and communication work with horses we did not know before. Riding in nature was great as well as the tests and lunch was fantastic. The only thing I didn’t like was the sound the doors in the barn made.”
“I liked the seminar very much. The Curlys were very nice as well as the teachers and participants. I hope, I may come back once.”
“I really liked the introduction into ground work. You were able to observe quite clearly that the horses were trained to react to even the smallest aids. I enjoyed the three days and the ambience on the Ranch Wolf very much.”
“The three days were fantastic and time just flew by. The relaxed and positive atmosphere was great. Also the children added a lot to that fact. The alternating theoretical and practical parts were great. I also liked the practical group work where everything was explained first for all and then later individually. I think your way to pick the best things out of every working style and combine those but always keeping eyes open for new styles went down well with everybody. I had almost no allergic symptoms during the seminar which is one point why I was able to enjoy the seminar so much almost like a little holiday. Thanks to you all also to the busy helpers and cook.”
Hoof orthopedics according to Jochen Biernat
Our participants were instructed by the hoof orthopedist how important it is to take care and treat the hooves of horses. Curly Horses have a very good and hard horn quality, so that they are perfectly made for barefoot walking. Nevertheless, regular treatments are necessary to avoid illness or malposition.
Blind passenger on a Curly
Right on the first day of the Curly Horse seminar the participants tried in pairs to feel the movements of the horse and to engage in those movements with up-tied eyes. Trusting the respective leader was also an important part of this exercise. As you can see on the picture, all three participants are relaxed and in good mood.
Friendly game
As adaptation to the weather we used the automatic umbrella to check and train the calmness of our Curlys. After the second opening of the umbrella every participant succeeded in fondling his Curly in every body zone. One aim of this exercise was that the Curly remains standing still.
Circling game has nothing
to do with longing a horse. The horse should remain in the same desired gait during the game until it is asked something different. The human is standing in the middle of the circle in a relaxed way and does not push the horse further. At the latest after the fourth circle you change the Curly´s gait, vary the length of the string or use obstacles.
The famous barrel
We created our own game which was not only fun fort he children but also for our Curly Horses. We hid Jojo in one of the five barrels. As soon as one horse approached the barrel, Jojo jumped up and tried to frighten the Curly. Diamond put her head bravely into the barrel and was pleased about being fondled.
Break
After two hours practice – leading, stops and go, circling game, friendly game, barrel game, freestyle game, yo-yo game - took the child and the Curly a break. You can see, they look both very satisfied. They did it perfect.
On the Curly´s back
On that picture you can see the so-called passenger riding. The rider remains passive and does not give any aids so that the horse chooses its way itself. Before this exercise the participants needed to fulfil a lot of seating -, balance- and skillexerci- ses while the horse was leaded. The riders were able to count on the skilled Curly mare Tamzara 100 %.
One of the following tasks
was the riding across coloured bars which needed highest concentration of all participants and Curlys. The “Dual Aktivierung” bases on those colours that horses are able to see best which are yellow and blue. This helps the horse to handle right-left impulses and this method activates the hind legs and therefore improves abdomen and back muscles.
The best comes last
and eight Curly Horses were cleaned and prepared thoughtfully. All were in very good mood during the guided and leaded ride and finally we had some sunshine in the end. After- wards we sat together completely homelike. As a summary you can state that we all learned a lot of each other and that it was a seminar that made us all feel really comfortable.
GW Levi Destiny
– the fittest foal ever
On the 15th of April in the evening Breezen prepared fort he birth of her first foal in the stable while we were outside to do ground and communication work. What a social time of the day to give birth, we thought!
But everything started with a shock – one of the front legs and the head were already outside while the second leg stuck. We immediately informed the vet and plan B now needs to be started. We knew how to help her at least theoretically if the vet did not arrive early enough. But before we started to help the Curly mare solved the problem herself.
After she had stood up and brought the foal back into the birth canal via muscle contractions, she pressed both front legs and the head out completely. Within three quarters of an hour the birth of our little mare foal was completed and we were able to cancel the appointment with the vet again. She jumped around quite lively and understood really fast where to get the life essential beast milk – some kind of turbo foal!
So everybody from the ranch met for dinner and celebration. At that moment the Curly Horse breeder Petra Wolf did not yet know how long this night would take. Time went by and the afterbirth was not yet out so that the risk of an infection increased with every minute. Hours and hours went by and due to the cold weather the group of waiting people became smaller and smaller.
Only Buddy, the loyal Leonberger, stayed with Petra Wolf and kept her awake in licking across her face until the early morning. As the situation did not improve and the infection risk got too high, Petra Wolf decided to take out the afterbirth herself with a lot of patience and sensitivity. So everything went fine in the end and the sweet Destiny made us forget about the turbulences around the birth.
Curly Horse Destiny is unbelievably
interested in everything which hap- pens around her. She investigates objects around her spontaneously and directly searches for contact with humans and all other Curlys. She runs around the paddock energetical- ly and plays with both, bipeds and quadrupeds. With pleasure she wallows in the sand of the beach and just enjoys living on the Ranch Wolf.
We looked around for Easter Eggs
And found a cute stallion foal
There had never been a Curly foal that got its name so fast before. The name „Bunny“ was assured twice, as it was born on Easter and has a silken bunny fur. You are just not able to stop fondle it.
Its second name „Buffon“ is derived from the famous soccer player. He is comparable fast and his heel tricks are legendary. The foal‘s exterior simply inspires every Curly fan: muscular and a hind leg positioned as if it had already been educated for years. What is most striking about it is the angular shoulder which enables physically for perfect gaits and an impressive gallop.
Curly saucer eyes
We all already fall for those eyes. How should we educate him consequently if he is looking at us in such a cute way? *GW Levi Bunny Buffon is really living up to his stallion life. On his first days of his life he is already flirting with the other Curly mare foal *GW Levi Cara Mia extensively.
Hurrah, my foal is finally born
It happened on the 7th of April
Something so wonderful that fulfils my life.
Your birth!
Finally you saw the light of the day.
Finally you are here!
I was completely speechless on that evening.
I felt so much love for such a little being.
But which name should be yours?
Now I know what your name should be: CARA MIA!
I would like to let everybody know, what that name means!
My love and it comes from Italy.
Later on, the adults drank a glass of champagne.
On the next day, I was not speechless anymore! When Misty and Cara Mia went to the riding ground for the first time, Misty presented her lovely daughter to the other horses. She might be the most shyly foal of the three but she already has a lot of confidence in me and of course in all others from the ranch and likes to nibble our fingers.
Thanks to everybody who helped during the birth…
Thank you!!!!
Cara Mia and Samira
…now with this foal besides me. My steps over every obstacle. Are filled with silent proud and soft grandeur.
A Curly lady from the Netherlands
Natural breeding
On a wonderful Sunday the Curly mare Rose came to us from the Netherlands to be mated to the charming GW Spirit.
Actually, we could have saved the e-mails and phone calls within Germany and the Netherlands as both of them fell in love with each other directly.
A Curly horse from the Netherlands
I have no idea how we should separate these two Curlys from each other again. They are one heart and one soul. We are already looking forward to see the amazing Curly foal next year. It would definitely be perfect, if it inherits the rare tri-coloured fur of the Curly dad. We will keep our fingers crossed!
