School Horse Aztec – a little about him…

A little about School Horse Aztec

ACADEMY OF DRESSAGE SCHOOL HORSE COLDSTREAM GOLDEN AZTEC   Written 12.12.2019

A little about School Horse Aztec

Aztec is a Registered Warmblood/Arab bred at Coldstream Stud in Victoria. These days he happily goes forward, passages beautifully, does Spanish walk, and of course all the two track exercises and lateral work. He has become an invaluable part of our School Horse Team, and has such a lovely temperament. It makes me VERY upset that he was so abused that he had completely shut down to try to mentally survive, had become a jib, and was into self harm, biting and tearing the flesh of his own chest. We bought Aztec when he had just turned 5 he is now 12. Aztec has a big bouncy way of going so students need to have an independent seat and well developed coordination before we allow them to have lessons on him. For students considering purchasing a warmblood he provides the perfect opportunity for riders to work out if they truly do want a warmblood moving horse and of course not all warmbloods have competition movement, even if advertised as warmbloods. The video shows Aztec just after he had been introduced to a double bridle, which he MUCH prefers to just the snaffle. This is because the curb works externally, namely the poll and lower jaw, as Aztec had been abused in the snaffle to the point that he had become a jib, eg. would not move, would go into his mental safe place where no one could hurt him. His way of coping. Poor darling. I restarted Aztec from scratch, which sadly I seem to have to do with most horses that come to us for training. I had to work around his major aversion to a snaffle because of the direct pressure that snaffles exert on the tongue, bars and lips, he had just learnt to not go forward and go to his safe mental place where no matter what someone did to him (eg flogging him with ropes because he would not, could not, go forward, go anywhere actually. This happens to big moving horses so often because riders get left behind and the horses mouth gets pulled every bouncy step, and their backs get banged every bouncy step too, this is exagerated when saddles are too small for the rider, which is also very very common.