Do You Ride Horses? V.4

[Brynmala]

That's a nice pedigree, and he sounds like a lovely horse! My OH's Arab came to us in a similar way, and like you no way could we afford a horse like him. I hope you are ok after your fall?

Ol's pedigree is at http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/apollo207 - he was bred in Denmark and brought over here as a youngster. His breeder obviously didn't feel the need to keep the Hanovarian naming convention! He came to me on loan from an old friend who had had him since he was 5, but she managed to mess her life up quite spectacularly and couldn't keep him. Ol is a bit of a sensitive soul, very headshy (I can brush his ears now, but it has taken 7 years), very ticklish, and got spatial awareness issues, especially around gates (twice he's scraped me off on a gate by shooting through when it wasn't open enough. I don't do gates now!), but he is a real sweetie really. We just go out and have fun, no schooling (no school!), just slopping around the lanes and bridlepaths, which suits me now. I was never a fan of warmbloods before he came to me, but I'd certainly have another one now.

Ok, off to go and give them their supper...

[Hime]

One youngter free lunged and groomed, check. One itchy mare washed, check. One idiot ridden, check. Good 7 hours spend. lol Tý got the idiot title, because he had to get his head under the tied rope and then panicked due that (stupid me had left the rope just tad too long, as I had forgotten his stupid habbit of messing with his head). Luckily the rope got off his poll somehow but he still kept pulling back and the freaking quick release knot would not open. Like that was literally the situation why every single horse person is taught how to tie one and why they are used, but nooo when the horse pulls apparently hard enough it won't release. Luckily he did calm down and realised there was nothing to panic over about. He didn't seem to be too traumatised as when I put some pressure on his halter afterwards he didn't react badly. Fingers crossed he won't get any sore or iffy things in his poll either...

[.:shiver:.]

@brynmala the two of us were both fine, thank goodness! Bruised and battered but more shaken than anything else - having a little stumble then ending up with the horse buckling under me was super scary and I was winded and worried about him more than anything, I saw him go down :/ but we were both completely fine haha

oh, that's nice pedigree :) i wish we could do that, we've not got great off road hacking and he's silly on the roads on his own (he has a habit of spinning when he's spooked) and can't always go out with someone else... we're lucky enough to have a school (newly resurfaced, i won the award for the first fall xD) and 7 furlong gallops so we can do a bit of quiet hacking there (and silly galloping too lol) warmbloods are great, even if they can be silly haha

[etriers]

Yesterday and the day before I went to a saddlebred horse show in Nebraska and was genuinely impressed. While of course some riders will be harsh with their equipment and riding, others were so soft and had great control of their amazing horse. In a spark of obsession I found a saddlebred barn near my school and will probably pay them a visit when fall semester starts back up, turning into lessons if it works out. I haven't ridden at a barn in years, I miss it, it's just expensive!
Do any of y'all ride saddleseat/work with saddlebreds? How do you like it?

[Brynmala]

@Hime - eek re Ty, horses can be so stupid sometimes! Not an ideal situation and I hope it hasn't caused any psycological issues, but it might have taught him that pulling back on something isn't going to get him free, which might not be a bad thing. You can hope anyway

@ shiver - glad you got away mostly unharmed. Sometime last year, before the ground was quite dry (clay soil round here, very slippery) Ol's feet went out from under him and he went down under me at a canter, firing me straight into the ground head first. Luckily we weren't going very fast, but in hind sight I shouldn't have been cantering at all. We were both ok, but its made me rather nervous of cantering on sticky ground.

I've experienced the warmblood spin too - oncoming busses are a good catalyst First time we end up going rather fast the opposite way up the middle of the road... second time we were on what passes as the main road round here, and we had a stream of traffic behind. Luckily he realised half way round that there wasn't anywhere to run to and stopped, and hasn't really tried it since. I'm also rather more aware now of the potential circumstances.

You are lucky having gallops, I'd love to have a go on one The best we have to go really stupidly fast on is a footpath (yes we trespass!) that is wide and up a hill so although it is not very long it is enough to make them really work. We don't do it often, neither horse is really fit enough.

Took Prophet out this morning, after last week's stupidity I was expecting... more. He really wasn't feeling it, we went out very slowly and I was working harder than I felt was necessary just to keep moving. Coming home was rather better, so I think he's just being a horse, and testing me to see what he can get away with - it was the first time I've taken him out alone.

[Huggles]

I think I'm getting closer to finding a horse.. Im going to see a 5y/o appy mare on saturday. From the videos and few pictures she looks just perfect and responsive, my favorite. Fingers crossed it goes well 😅 and hopefully I have the patience to wait almost a full week oh boy. Been at this way too long ha!

[Nocte Luna]

Hi all! It's been quite a while but I'm finally posting an update! It's really awesome to see some familiar faces and some new ones, too. I was on this thread pretty early on, but school took over my life.

@Huggles
Wow that's fantastic! I hope all goes well and your prospective horse passes all the vet tests with flying colors, good luck!

Now that I'm home, I've been working and riding pretty consistently. I've done a lot of stuff from packing the trailer, teaching, and helping get horses ready to school, so I've been pretty busy!

I've been on and off riding Gabby and Callahan - I usually lesson on Gabby and just hack Callahan, though I've worked with Senator a little bit, too. I also got to ride an old friend, Pete! After not riding him for 2 years it was nice to ride him again. As for the horses I work more regularly, Gabby's been really good lately, and we've been having some solid rides. I swear, I'd be a much better rider if I did better with my leads and getting flying changes. For the most part, I'm pretty good with feeling it out, but I've been making tons of bad mistakes lately and I definitely think I should work on changes soon, considering I rarely get the flying change and usually have to make the simple change. Callahan has gotten much better, too - I remember jumping him last year and being TERRIFIED because he'd just drag me to the base and now he's really lightened up. Going to the right last Friday we had a lovely floaty canter for such a big horse.

I'm also back into teaching a little bit - I've already subbed for one of our regular instructors, and no one fell off that day so I think I managed. I tried my best, but I'm still struggling a little to jump in with lessons that aren't walk/trot with obvious things to work on or fix. Hopefully teaching cantering and jumping lessons gets easier this next week, as I have 2 days of subbing ahead, then 2 days of summer camp. At least I have one little leadliner Tuesday mornings so I have someone to teach and work with consistently.
I'm not teaching park district, which is a bit of relief, but I definitely kind of need the money right now...college/university is expensive, and so is riding while I'm at school, but hopefully all the other work I've done will make up for the fact that I'm not working 1 hour on Saturday.

Other than that, I've been doing all sorts of work around the barn to help out, which was really nice after not being able to ride for almost 2 months.

[vash ♡]

its been a minute but here’s a run down. i got kicked out of my last barn around november bc my ex gf is a monster, i got my horse back from her in april in horrible shape bc she neglected him, and i have to sell him again bc i cannot afford his chiropractic appointments and he’s still not what i need as a horseman or to financially stabilize as an independent adult. wrong timing. anyways i still work as a carhop at a fast food drive-in, it’s been a mess but im pretty good. going out to a racehorse farm for an interview tomorrow. don’t know if they need just a hand or a trainer or someone to breeze their horses but it’s a full time equestrian job regardless so. -shrug- my bf moves here at the latest by next year and i’ll probably be able to work with his filly since she’d be old enough to start over jumps... if he’s not doing full time cutting and reining work on her by then.

[Mercury.Muses]

Hello! Long time no see to this website lol.

So.. to give a quick run down, I got a horse for Christmas, it's a 2 year-old filly. Her name is Maggie.
Progress has been very slow with her (she's practically completely unhandled) because she was previously at my instructor's ranch and I'm not driving yet (getting license soon luckily) so it was a hassle to go and see her since the ranch is kind of far away. Luckily, my instructor is also the manager at a stables I work at 10 minutes from my house and we finally had a stall open up and Maggie was brought in. I'm a bit stuck now on where to go with her... I can pet her all over/grab her tail & ears/generally handle her with hands alone and about 2 months ago I was able to get a halter on her but that's been about the extent of her training. Oh and she's also desensitized to the lunge whip and semi to a rope, I can pet her with one and throw it over her back/next to her but it's about 30 to 70 ratio with her jumping away or standing still. Now when I first was able to halter her, I would wrap my arms around her neck (although note by "wrap" I mean make a huge o around her) to grab the strap around the poll, get that and then slide the rest of the halter on and buckle it. My biggest issue has always been getting that strap up on her poll and the general movement of getting the halter up her nose at first. Once the halter is on she's perfectly fine with me grabbing the strap and re-buckling/pulling on it, or sliding the nose piece around. Basically she's fine with a halter once it's on her. She's also fine with me rubbing down her sides and neck with it, and if I'm facing in front of her, I can slide it up with nose without a problem and actually throw the strap over her poll (but that's hard doing it straight on lol) My real issue with this all is her poll/neck on that side (her left side) when haltering.

To sum things up, I was able to halter her in the beginning, then I went a few more times over a week and everything was fine with haltering. I didn't go 2 weeks, went back, and suddenly she's deathly afraid of me wrapping me arms around her/haltering her from the side. She gets all panicky whenever I try to do this and bolts from me. The first time this happened she ran around her pen for a good portion of an hour and a half before I could actually get the halter on her. But after the first time, it only took minutes to do it again. I'm just confused as to why she'd panick from the side.. especially since I'm directly in her vision there. She's still completely fine with me haltering her head on and now I'm stuck in this spot where the only way I can halter her is by sliding the nose band up the front, kind of awkwardly squatting to reach my arms back by her poll, grabbing the tip of the strap and then shuffling barely an inch to the side to halter her. Even when I do it this way, she's fine just until I start to move to the side, then she gets all snorty and high-headed but by then I'm already hooking the strap.

Any tips? Advice??

Also, now that's she in a stall and I can spend more time with her I'm definitely planning on desensitizing her to more stuff. I was thinking of hanging up an empty bottle, potentially putting a tarp in there (her stall is rather large so if I do she'll have room to move away from these objects/check them out on her own accord) or even getting her like a huge ball?? So if anyone has ideas of what I could throw in her stall, I'd also appreciate those lol.

Thanks!

[vash ♡]

potentially have a job at a racing facility (QH, TB, and barrels). i might be breezing some dudes, hello, help, i'm a jumper HAHHG

everyone was like "if you wanna become a pro trainer, you'll learn pretty quickly when you can handle a racehorse you got everything else."