BACK TO SUCCESS STORIES INDEX
New owner, Bob Gault, writes:
Sneaky Feeling was a "not fast enough" four-year-old mare at Fairmount Park in July 2002 when I found her and several other prospects on the Canter website. After looking at many horses offered by Fairmount Park trainers on the Canter website, I selected Sneaky as the best prospect for a field hunter. She was quiet, sound and eager to please. I bought her and brought her home.
I assumed she knew nothing of how to be a riding horse and began at the beginning with 15-20 minute daily sessions of lunging for thirty days and then sixty days of ground driving. She learned to walk, trot, canter, stop and back via voice command before I got on her back. She also learned to jump up to three feet with a three foot spread while on long lines.
Sneaky had never had more the 120 lbs on her back before so I was a little leery how she would handle considerably more than that. I need not have worried. She stood like a lady when I first mounted. We then began mounted work to learn mounted aids for walk, trot, canter, stop etc. We also began hacking work outside the ring in fields and woods. She took to it like she was bred for hacking and hunting not racing.
In January 2003, Sneaky and I began serious ring work with a trainer to hone her skills (and mine) on jump courses. We jumped many fences indoors and in springtime began work on hunt country type fences, i.e., coops, logs, post and rail etc.
By the fall of 2003, Sneaky and I had been working for a year to make her ready for her new life as a field hunter. She is a success in her new role. The photos show a quiet, confident and competent field hunter surrounded by hounds and over a hunting country coop. Thoroughbreds are great horses and I thank Canter for providing an outlet for Thoroughbreds that are no longer useful on the track.
Photos Used With Permission
