Matt was very busy traveling to clinics this quarter.  Thanks go out to our host facilities in New Jersey, Virginia, Texas, Florida, and Pennsylvania for their wonderful hospitality.  Matt was very impressed with his students’ enthusiasm and dedication to learning more about training their horses.  Matt is looking forward to revisiting these facilities later in the year. 

Pecos did very well at his first show of the year.  Pecos competed in 3rd level test 3 and 4th level test 3 classes and received scores from 61-68 percent!  Pecos was weekend Champion at 3rd level Open and Reserve Champion at 4th level Open.  He is now qualified for Andalusian Nationals in both levels.  Pecos will be competing again in August to earn his remaining scores to qualify for USDF regionals championships at 3rd and 4th level.

Coral, Pecos, and Del Amor made an appearance at the Equine Extravaganza in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Del Amor, our pure black Andalusian stallion, debuted in his first clinic demonstrating how to train the Spanish Walk and some basic liberty techniques.   This was Del Amor’s first experience working in a round pen surrounded by an audience and listening to Matt’s very loud microphone enhanced voice.  Despite all of the distractions, Del Amor was very well behaved and showed visible progress in his Spanish Walk training.   

Pecos, who performed his classical dressage act and an East-West act for the evening shows as well as one or two clinics each day, was not impressed with Del Amor’s achievement.  It was apparent Pecos was wondering when Del Amor was going to start carrying an equal share of the workload.  Pecos showed poise, patience, and gentleness throughout the expo displaying an amazing calm that belied his status as a stallion.  

Coral, of course, wowed the audience with his high energy exhibition.  His genuine love for performing in front of a crowd is very obvious as he comes alive the moment he enters the arena.  Coral’s other love is his turnout.  Coral has free reign to the entire farm for turnout.  In addition to making sure the stallions are sufficiently tormented, Coral takes his guard horse duties seriously.  All entering vehicles must stop for the Coral roadblock, submit to an inspection of the driver and bed of the truck, and only then may they continue on.  Bribes are welcome.