Ebony Park Friesians - Videos to make Friesian lovers hearts soar

HERE is their website.  I signed up for their free monthly on-line magazine.  Below is an interview
and three points below which I found quite interesting.  My Sebastian is half Friesian, he is a Friesian Sport horse.  Thank goodness, my trainer, James Cooler, understood to be patient with Sebastian as he was one horse very resistant to pressure at fist.  Now, he is amazingly light and responsive.  He also is a horse that gets bored very quickly with endless repetition and ring work.  For him, quality, not quantity, if key.  I posted a video of the horse just below, Orlando, being worked by Sarah.  The last video is of three adorable foals of their 2011 season.  Enjoy!

So what you can learn from this story!?

1. All young horses are different! Some take longer to learn that others.

You need to respect that, and be incredibly patient, loving and generous. To begin with, Orlando wasn’t too sure about contact – if we had forced his head down and ‘made’ him work, we would be in a whole lot of trouble. By just using gentle persistence and encouragement, it became ‘his’ idea to come round and through and now he loves it – it’s also a lot easier for us as the rider.

2. With the young ones, and with all horses we firmly believe it’s the quality of work you do that is important, not the length of time. Orlando was never worked longer than 30mins – usually 20 mins. With each session, as long as he tried, that was considered a ‘great’ session. We never compared the last session to this one, and we were always impressed if he walked, trotted, cantered half straight, and half forward – we were onto a good thing!

3. We am always in awe that a horse allows us to ride on his back. That he carries us, and tries to understand what we want, and where we want him to go. That respect and love has to be there all the time, and we always give the horse a carrot, apple, mouthful of food after we ride back into the washbay to say thanks mate – you did good.

and here is a sweet video of three Friesian foals of their 2011 season.  So adorable and the selected music is very nice as well.