A Galiceno For Our Program

Our newest addition--a five year old Galiceno from Galicenos of Suwannee in Florida. The Galicenos have a slightly different phenotype than my other strains of Colonial Spanish Horses, but this one has the same mind as do the Corollas. Here he is jut a few hours after getting off of the trailer from Florida and having no previous experience with a saddle .

One of the advantages of having the strength come back in my hands post surgery is that I can step back in and be directly in charge of handling and training a young horse. I will use him to help a newer rider learn how the mind of a horse works but except for that I will handle his training myself.

This is the second Galiceno that I have ever seen in person. The first was more than 45 years ago.

Encore:Another Old Post About Lido

Now we play old time and bluegrass music. I play 6 or 7 instruments, though I am not great on any of them. My brother Joseph plays four or five and he is great on all of them. I have about ten little adopted brothers and sisters, all much younger than me. Nearly all of us play--guitars, banjos, mandolins, dulcimers, dobros, auto harps, fiddles, bass fiddles, harmonicas, bodhrun, and guitars. My daughters play mandolins and my wife plays an auto harp.
Lido loved the same music I did, ancient mountain songs of beauty and meaning. I made him a three string banjo and I hoped we could invent a style that he could play considering the limited use that he had of his right arm. We never got successful with that but he found that he could keep time on a bodhrun, an ancient Irish drum that is generally played with a tipper. Lido could not maneuver the tipper, but he could play an older style using only his hand.
There really is only 24 hours in a day and as my girls got older and I spent more time in the horse lot, we performed less and less.
It has been a little over two months since he died and Lido had his last concert on Saturday night. My brother Joseph is not merely good, he is a prodigy and has garned a tremendous following among regional blue grass fans. The day of the funeral he decided that on Feb 28 he was going to put on a big show for Lido. He assembled a number of bands and put on a seven hour show at the Isle of Wight
Academy. It was a huge success. I had been sick all week thinking about going to the show and I really did not think that I could sit through the show and think about Lido that for that long of a time.
But something interesting happened and I hope that it will take hold. As I listened to Joseph singing songs that I taught him the words to when he was five years old, I thought about teaching those same songs to Lido when he was a bit older. When Joseph was talking about playing on the bus with Kenny Baker and Bill Monroe. I thought about Lido following Jeanette Carter, daughter of Sara and A.P.Carter of the Original Carter Family all around the Carter Fold. I remembered how he had to assemble his gear to hunt with me when he was too little to carry a gun. He took his essentials--lots of candy and a stack of Carter family recordings on cassette tape. I remembered him at the right hand of the great old time banjo player Leroy Troy everywhere he went at one festival and from that point on referring to Troy only as "my friend."

And...those memories felt good. Up to that point I had not had a memory that did anything but sear me to the core. Particularly since I think of Lido all the time, it certainly would be better if those thoughts could just stop hurting so much. After Saturday night I think that they might.

One last point, the audience could go in the back and have a fine dining experience put together primarily by my riders and their families. They worked at a grueling pace and did a great job. That meant a lot to Daddy and even more to me.

(Lido was about 10 in this picture and Stardust was a yearling)

This Is An Old Post That I am Putting Up So You Can Understand The Lido Fund

From Lido's Point of View

You do ride pretty, but not as good as me.
My riding is a little bouncy cause only part of my body works.
Keep on riding. You'll get better.
But not as good as me.

You run fast with two strong legs, but not as good as me.
I run far and fast on bare feet.
Keep on running. You'll get better.
But not as good as me.

You get on a wild horse that Steve holds tight.
I busted five, in one day, that had never been ridden.
You keep on being tough. You'll get better.
But not as good as me.

You learn to judge people, and horses for what they can become.
I learned to judge people for the good that they have done.
You go try to learn to not judge people at all. You'll get better.
But not as good as me.

You will ride through the woods all round the horse lot.
After a while you will get sore but I will not.
Now my body doesn't tire, my ankle doesn't hurt.
Here in Heaven everybody talks just like me,
Well, actually not quite as good as me.

My youngest brother Lido, who died yesterday at age 17, is shown above riding a mustang in a clinic that we put on. He was about 14 then and had been working Sand Creek for about a week. During the week he taught this barely started colt to come to a stop with his sole cue being to exhale deeply. I will never forget the look of relief on his young owner's face when she came to realize that her young mustang really could be trained. Lido was born with cerebral palsy. He still had it when he died in a hunting accident yesterday, but between the time he was born and when he died he kicked cerebral palsy's ass.

Posted by Steve Edwards

Mill Swamp Indian Horse Views: The Lido Fund

This old post is eve more urgent now --Mill Swamp Indian Horse Views: The Lido Fund: Stop reading for a moment and go to the home page of the Horse of the Americas Registry where you can read about the Lido Fund. Now tha...

Testing Not Guessing

Not many people have ever seen a three string wooden banjo such as the one shown above. It might not look loud enough to hear over other instruments. If one wanted to know how much sound it could put out one would not look up an old formula based on measuring its size in order to give its potential for volume. One would not ask one who has never seen or heard the banjo to opine on its volume, even if that person had even playing a bass fiddle all of their lives. One would not simply guess as to the quality of its tone.

No, a rational person would either listen to, or even better, play, the banjo in order to hear for one's self.

The same is true for determining the weight carrying ability of a small Colonial Spanish horse like a Corolla. These little horses on many occasions have carried me over forty miles in a day without the slightest problem. Don't guess that they would be too small for adults. Don't seek the opinion of a horse person who has never even seen, much less ridden one of these horses. Don't apply some baseless formula as if quantification is reality.

Ride the horse. Or speak with those who have ridden them in mud, at night, on frozen ground, on parched ground, through water, in cut overs and through the woods if you want to learn what they can do.

I did not know what they could do. I was shocked. I learned. Ten years ago I was as ignorant as are those today who think a horse must be at least fifteen hands and well over 1000 pounds for an adult to ride him.

The very unfortunate reality is that I have probably ridden Corollas more miles than any human alive on this planet. I do not have to guess.

I know how much volume my little banjo can put out. I do not have to guess on that either.