Meet Mr. Bishop

Mr. Bishop is an OTTB that a friend of mine took in as a rescue several years ago. He had a slab fracture to his knee. One of his eyes is a bit cloudy because for some reason they decided to do a cornea transplant. She isn’t sure why but other than it being a bit cloudy he seems fine. He is HUGE (well for me anyways) but he is beautiful too. He is also a very graceful mover which for some reason I didn’t expect from an OTTB.

My TB experience is very limited. In high school I exercised some TB’s for a gentleman when they weren’t on the track. Other than that, I just picked them up from the trainer at the track or dropped them off. I did however learn that you don’t pull back on them to get them to stop!

T (that’s what we’ll call my friend) has a few horses that will never be placed due to injuries but Mr. Bishop was cleared by the vet to be ridden (even raced) again so she’d like to get him going so he can find a good home. I know her time is limited (she also does wildlife rehabilitation and has 12 baby raccoons and a couple of baby squirrels at the moment) so I’ve offered to help. I’d like to get back into horses the way I “used to” be into them and the only way that is going to happen is by getting a bunch of different horses underneath me.

So last night the weather was lovely (a bit sticky but I won’t complain too much). T got Mr. Bishop out of the pasture and brought him down to the RP for me. I took off the lead, put on a headstall and sent him out. I’ve worked with him once before and had a heck of a time getting my inside turns from him. Anytime I’d step in front of his drive line (even if I was moving backwards) he’d turn away. This time I got my inside turns! I moved back and then over and slowly caught his attention. Anytime he’d start to go into the fence I’d go right back to the hip. It didn’t take much pressure at all to get him going.

He was beautiful moving around the RP! I wish I would have gotten some footage (maybe next time) but it was later than expected and I wanted to keep moving forward. He drives up under himself so naturally and he keeps his head & neck level while he moves. He’d make a beautiful hunter/jumper!

After I got him moving out I decided to saddle him up. I threw my saddle up on him and checked to see how “grithy” he’d be. To my surprise he wasn’t girthy at all so I finished cinching him up and then attached the back cinch and sent him out. That’s when the crow hopping began. Silly boy!

He crow hopped around the arena a bit. I kept changing directions to take his mind off of it but his undies were in a bunch. When he finally quit I retightened the girth (front and back) and sent him back out. He was fine so I brought him in and put my reins on. We did some flexing from the ground. He was stiff! I needed more power! We got some minute gives to the left and some decent ones to the right. I decided to see if I could get on (with the help of a step stool of course.

He felt weird but it was a good weird. When I got on we immediately did some flexing and then I did some yielding of the HQ to loosen him up (and to make sure I could stop him if something did happen). I slowly began to spiral him out and we finally were walking around the edge of the RP. We did some ORS until I felt comfortable enough to trot him. Wow! For a big horse he had a nice trot! I really like this guy. He could be a lot of fun and he could make a really nice horse for someone. The only “problem” I ran into was after a bit of trotting he decided to start tossing his head. I think he was just tired (it had been a while since he’d been ridden and he’s quite plump) so when he’d do it I would turn him hard into the fence and send him on the other direction.

I was amazed at how slow he could go when he got by the gate. Needless to say I let him rest on the opposite side of the RP.

We had a huge storm this morning (I had water in my kitchen) so I’m not sure if I’ll get to work with him tonight or not. I’d like to try to work him every night this week weather providing.

Here are a few pictures (DH took them so this is as good as it gets).



This isn’t me riding (T got on after I rode) but it will show you his size. T is as a little bit smaller than I am and she looks so tiny on him! This was about as high as his head got.