Meet Cody!

Cody

Cody was my first horse. I owned him from June 1997 through June 1998. He is a 16.3 hand high bay Thoroughbred gelding. He was foaled in March 1990. He is by Speed Play, out of Adapt to Luck.

He was an eventing horse before I bought him. Until February 1998 we trained at a hunter barn. At that time we started training with Excalibur Training at the Portola Valley Training Center.

The move to Excalibur was a good one for us overall, but in the end we proved to be a less than optimal match. My trainer convinced me that selling Cody was the right thing to do. Even after all the progress Cody and I made together, we still had a lot of trouble. Cody would often refuse jumps, and I fell a lot.

Cody taught me that horses have so much to teach if you're only willing to listen. Humans have such poor understanding of what it means to be a flight animal. This makes communication very difficult sometimes. People have to remember that fear is a huge motivating factor for horses. Indeed, it is what kept them alive before humans came along.

Cody was a bit of a coward, even for a horse. Every barn cat or chicken was a scary monster waiting to pounce. Windy days and dark arenas were invitations for trouble. I learned to work through this to some extent, but after a while it was clear that Cody's nervousness would always limit us. So, I sold Cody and bought Bert.