About Elix

Elix is a five year old Norwegian Fjord gelding. He was born in Eastern Ontario. His father Felix was imported from Norway and his mother Nagia was imported from Holland. Elix was raised in a herd of Fjordhorses, and taught the basics of how to lead, tie, and be handled by his breeder. At five years of age he was sold to become a riding and driving horse and he was sent to a trainer to be started.

Things unfortunately got off to a rough start with the trainer. At the trainer’s facility Elix was anxious and found it hard to settle. Over the course of two months he had some unfortunate incidents, including barging out of the round pen and knocking the trainer over; another time he spooked when being long-lined, pulled away, and ran off when the trainer scraped his foot on the ground. Finally Elix bolted and bucked the trainer off when he was riding him in the ring.

The trainer then declared Elix was a dangerous and untrainable horse and refused to touch him anymore, and said that he should be euthanized! I thought Elix deserved a chance, so I agreed to take on his retraining.

My plan for Elix is to start at the very beginning. He will be vet checked and have his teeth floated right after he arrives, then we will fit him for tack and start working with him. I do dressage riding, so I will start Elix in basic dressage training. I will first teach Elix to lunge with tack and accept contact with the bridle. We will take things at his pace, and I will give Elix the time he needs to figure things out. In the future when the weather is better and Elix has his basic foundation, I intend to ride him out in the fields and trails, take him to shows and events, and perhaps even start him driving.

To minimize confusion, I am giving Elix the barn name of “Levi” since I already have a horse called Helix in my barn.

I will be blogging about each step of Elix’s retraining from the moment he arrives here. My pledge is to be totally honest in reporting how I train Elix and how he reacts every step of the way. I invite you to follow along with his progress!