Kassabelle - 15.3hh by Kassiber (Trak) x Belladios (TB) |
Kassie arrives | Adelaide | Back to the wild | Sedatives | A jumping horse | A pet | Early shows | More work for Kassie | Kassie at stud
After the birth of Amabelle on 20th September 1989, I was ready to put my Thoroughbred mare Belladios back to Koenigsberg for another foal. The proprietor of the stud told me "I think you will get a nice foal from Kassiber", and I wisely followed his advice.
I got a lovely foal from Kassiber on 25th September 1990, when Kassie was born. I was told "This foal is really something" and she was. People wanted to buy her, I was offered money, and with the benefit of hindsight I realise I should have sold her! However, I really wanted her, so I resisted the offers, and kept her.
Kassie remained in the care of the stud in New South Wales until January 1992 when she was moved to a friend's property in Adelaide. On her arrival it transpired that she was quite a wild little thing! Had I realised this, I may have considered sending her elsewhere, as my friend's property was not set up for the taming and breaking of wild horses - Kassie soon worked that out. She became very cunning, and avoided human contact very successfully. I managed to combine a work trip with a visit to Kassie, and had only a single day to work with her. Despite a difficult start and the fact that it took me until early afternoon to "trap" and catch her, my patience and perseverence succeeded, and the day turned into a great success. When I left Kassie was wearing a headcollar with short "catching" rope, and she had been handled constantly for over three hours - touching her all over, grooming and generally petting and making a fuss of her.
Unfortunately once I had left Kassie managed to return to her previous semi-wild state. It was a difficult situation as I could not expect my friend, who had many horses of her own to deal with, to handle my young fiery girl as well. The headcollar broke and fell off, and Kassie was back to avoiding human contact. Kassie was by this stage old enough to come to Alice Springs, but nobody could catch her to put her on a truck! After some months I warned my friend that if we did not "bite the bullet", she would end up with a beautiful wild mare in her paddock forever.... we resorted to drugs in Kassie's feed.
It took a while, and far more of the edible sedative than we would have liked, but Kassie was eventually caught and trucked to Alice Springs. I can't remember exactly which year it was or how old she was, but I think it was 1994. When she arrived the transport operator (an expert horseman and good friend) told me "this horse will jump". I laughed off his comment and replied that she was bred for dressage from lines that were successful in that field; her sister Amabelle was bred with jumping in mind. He stated flatly "this horse will jump", and I was left wondering why. He also charged me an extra $50 for all the ropes Kassie had broken during loading!
Later on I learned the full story. On one of the occasions when Kassie broke ropes to flee her Evil-Human-Captors, she ended up in some sort of gully. Apparently the sides were a good 5 feet high, and the ground rocky. I am told that Kassie calmly surveyed her surroundings and contemplated the best way to escape, before deciding to jumped up the side of the gully. It was all done without any panic: very cool and calculating. And she was obviously powerful enough in her jump to impress a very experienced horseman! Luckily her escape was short-lived, she was re-captured and ultimately transported to Alice Springs.
It did not take long for Kassie to become very tame (250+ years of good Trakehner breeding!), and she turned into a real pet very quickly. She would probably rather have been a dog! I seemed to spend a lot of time "putting off" her breaking in - not her fault, I always seemed to be busy with other horses. And it is always easier to hop onto the horse that is "going" than to work on breaking in a youngster... Thus her breaking in took an awfully long time. Not because she was in any way difficult, in fact she was wonderful and became an absolute breeze to lunge - so very obedient to the voice and body language. I would get started on her and get her going a little, then get waylaid with the other horses so that when I got back to her we'd have to start all over again. I reckon she was broken in more times than any other horse in the world!
During the time I should have been riding her but wasn't, I took her to a few led classes at shows every now and then. She won ribbons in most of the classes I put her in, and was Reserve Champion mare at Alice Springs Show in 1999. See the pictures above showing her placing 3rd in the led mare class at Alice Springs Show in July 1997; with her Reserve Champion Mare ribbon at the 1999 Alice Springs Show; and the picture to the right shows an early attempt at dressage! (Click the pictures to see larger images)
My "main" horse at this stage was Haji Baba, but at the end of July 2001 he went lame. Finally I had no excuse not to put all my efforts into Kassie! However, I was still a bit wary of her back then. She made me nervous: there was too much "unknown" about her because she'd had so little time under saddle, and was so young in behaviour, if not in age! Although she was 11 years old (gulp!), her education was no further advanced than the average newly-broken in 3 or 4 year old. Plus she was a bit of a spoilt brat too - from so many years of being a "pet". I needed to develop more confidence in her. During the summer of 2001/2002, my project was to gain that confidence, and I finally gave Kassie the time and effort she deserved. We did many many long rides, and by the end of the summer I realised that she is really a pussycat, and my wariness was quite unfounded!
2002 was Kassie's biggest riding year. However, she still did not manage to remain my only and "main" horse. Haji's lameness was not improving and it seemed he may never be rideable again. I therefore bought my supposedly advanced dressage horse Renalyn Gregadoo as a "replacement" (so that I could have a go at higher levels). Kassie had to share my attentions with Greg.
