Do You Ride Horses?

[sforzando.]

Got to see Breyerfest again this year <3
It always opens your eyes to new styles of riding and horsemanship. I felt sorry for the horses, though. It was 90-some degrees and I think it was Apollo from DD Horsemanship that had a demo including fire everywhere... Yeah, very smart but he's alright I guess. Some horses got really cranky or hyper as well. I still liked seeing the drill team and mounted games c:

I wouldn't feel too bad for them because of the temperature. Here where I live we ride them in 110 degrees, and that's after the sun has gone down. x.x They don't sweat except under the girth and saddle blanket, but then again, we don't really work them too hard.

and ugh my dad goes from "yea I'll get you a horse" one minute to "no we don't have the money omg stop asking stop" and just
I don't even know anymore.

[MysticRider_]

yes I do and my horse is nameis Twotone .He is a bay in winter and roan in spring / summer and is 15 hh.

[WilloweWolf]

Yes, i do ride horses, though I can't very often because it requires going to Nairobi...

[Hime]

@monchele: I really like the black and white pic, though the colored is nice too. Still the mood in the other is little better and the sun in the corner looks neat.
I loooove close contact saddles. XD Heta's old saddle was one and it was super nice to sit. I've been thinking to add little jumping to Heta's work out as well. So please do share if it has any effects on Thinker.

@Hano: Yes, tolting is good and so is pacing. Usually Icelandics tolt a lot as babies, especially if they are 5 gaited and 4 gaited tend to trot little more. Then usually 2-3 year olds start to trot more. In this case pace pony is pretty good thing as I'd like to do pace classes in future. But Tývar seems to have so much of it so that it's messing up his canter at this point. XD
I really hope Heta was just stiff or something as othervise in the pasture she moves well with no lameness... Though if it turns out she has bone spavin, it's not the end of the world condition, just annoying...
I think the WB colt is going to be registered as FWB, though his sire is Holsteiner and the colt takes after him a lot. Sire's lines go to TBs pretty close by on both sides as well as Selle Francais. I have toooons of picture of all the babies. lol Here's one. I think that's when he was little less than week old...

@June Bug: Tývar's going to big boy when he grows up. XD
Definetly sounds like Grande could make a good drill horse with little practise. c: Also good luck on the fair performance. Hopefully all the drill horses stay healthy this time.

@Opal: Sounds like your riding break did good.

@Auxi: Well.. You said you ride saddleseat and from the little I've seen the said discipline, most of the riders have chair seat more or less... And in chair seat it's hard to post properly...
Quick question though. The saddlebreds at the stable you ride at, do they have special shoing or not?

[Dela.]

Hello, so I have been riding a 16.3hh gelding, He loves to canter and its hard to keep him in a steady trot without him cantering? I have held my reins tighter but he still goes into a slow canter.. Any help/tips?

[eventing.]

Hello, so I have been riding a 16.3hh gelding, He loves to canter and its hard to keep him in a steady trot without him cantering? I have held my reins tighter but he still goes into a slow canter.. Any help/tips?

My mare does the same thing. I sit back and put my weight in the saddle when she goes into a canter. The reason she canters is because she gets bored doing the same thing. I suggest going around the ring doing circles, halts, and a lot of other stuff. Walk trot canter transitions also help. If none of that helps maybe put him in a round pen before getting on to tire him out.

[MochaTheLlama]

So, I went swimming with Poco on Friday!
We had a big group show up (sorry for the weird lines, it was taken off my instagram. Poco and I are the ones inbetween the friesian and the palomino), so I was glad about that since Poco seems calmer on trails in bigger numbers.
I think Poco had the most fun out of both horses and riders! Everyone was commenting on how happy he looked. xD He would swim out as far as he could until I'd stop him, and the water would be halfway up his neck and he'd be trotting around in the water happily. He was making big waves too, and then there was a giant wake behind us it was so funny! Trotting in the water is so.. different though.. it's like you're just bobbing up and down slowly. Every so often too Poco would stop and stick his nose in the water and start thrashing it around, splashing any of the horses nearby. He's so adorable. xD
I felt bad though, since Poco's big waves spooked another horse and she took off cantering in the water, making really sharp turns and half rearing up. The rider stuck on though! Then later another girls horse spooked at something and bucked her off into the water. xD She was laughing about it though, since landing in the water can't hurt that much! Then earlier when we were first getting into the water, Mr.Wonderful the friesian decided to lay down in the water and roll! xD
The ride back was brutal with all the bugs though, so I jog trotted the way back. Bad mistake. The bareback pad I used turns leather like when wet and I was wearing shorts.. now I have rubs on the insides of my legs. :c

[June Bug]

@ Hime: Is he starting to lose his baby coat already? I noticed some dark patches on him in a couple of those photos. If so, he's going to have a gorgeous color too. 8]
And yes, he really liked the out-of-the-ordinary work. He's one of those that doesn't really like doing the same thing over and over all the time, so classes have started to not be that fun for him.

Grande is apparently be leased right now, btw. :/ And by some chick who I already don't like. I had a class at 10 with him and she decided to come in at 8:30, take him out behind the ring, and gallop him for an hour. She then left him in his stall. She didn't even graze him for a little before I came to get him. It's way too hot to be even cantering for longer than short stretches, let alone galloping. Poor guy was totally fried when I got him. He was refusing everything and wouldn't even track straight. He pulled on me so hard, I now have blisters between my fingers. If I'd known how hard she worked him before hand, I wouldn't have taken him out for a lesson. Instead, I just assumed he was being naughty and made him do the exercise. Luckily, we only did two rounds of canter for warmup and the rest was trot work so it wasn't too hard on him, but the poor guy wasn't happy.
He apparently doesn't show sweat very well either. I had no idea how hot he was until I took his saddle off and saw how drenched he was underneath.
I gave him a nice, thorough spray down and grazed him for an hour after that. :/
I'm getting a second job soon so I really hope I'm going to be able to lease him myself soon. However, I'm probably going to be forced out of my house in the next few months or so so my first priority is going to be paying for rent. I'm hoping to move in with one of my friends from the barn. She offered me a room today since her previous roommate moved out. That'd be ideal since she lives close and her rate sounds a lot better than the sort of price I'd have to pay for any apartments around here, especially the ones that allow dogs, which are much more expensive and even most of those don't allow dogs as big as mine.
This friend is an older woman so it's a house with a fenced backyard and she has a dog of her own (our dogs get along well) so not only is the price better, but the living situation is much better for both me and my dog. I really hope that works out.

[Hime]

Got to see Breyerfest again this year <3
It always opens your eyes to new styles of riding and horsemanship. I felt sorry for the horses, though. It was 90-some degrees and I think it was Apollo from DD Horsemanship that had a demo including fire everywhere... Yeah, very smart but he's alright I guess. Some horses got really cranky or hyper as well. I still liked seeing the drill team and mounted games c:

I wouldn't feel too bad for them because of the temperature. Here where I live we ride them in 110 degrees, and that's after the sun has gone down. x.x They don't sweat except under the girth and saddle blanket, but then again, we don't really work them too hard.

Kinda depends what you are used to really... Here if it would ever get 110F no one would be able to move outside. XP Like literally when we had heat wave and temps went to 95F in the sun, it was horrible. All the horses were so tired and summer itch horses were sweating under the rugs, not to mention the horseflies were killers. Here 77F is the limit it in terms of riding if it's sunny, if not because of horses then it's the people that over heat. XD But generally horses aren't very happy then either. Now we've had little colder weather, 59-68F during the days with occasional rain. And the wind smells like fall already. ;-;

@Dela: I pretty much agree with Summer Eventer here. Though adding some my thoughts. First make sure you are not accidentally kicking or squeezing with your legs in trot. I doubt you ride with a whip/crop on such horse, but if you do, drop it. Do half halts in trot, like even on every step if needed. If he canters how easily you can get him to trot? Also do you know if others have the same problem with him?
Sounds like he doesn't run off(like out of control), just switches gait so that's little odd really... I don't know could there be something that causes him discomfort in trot, but in canter his fine?

@MochaLlama: Swimming with horses is soooo much fun isn't it. Heta also likes to stick her nose in the water and push it around while walking. XD We've never gotten deep enough for her to actually swim as our lake is pretty shallow and I'm not totally comfortable in water. But still just going in the lake is fun.

@June Bug: Nope he's too young still, about 4 months is the usual when they start shedding. It's little weird actually as the dark spots are areas where there is no fur really, but nothing is so far growing back on them(darn, would have been curious to see what he turns out as) other than black fuzz.
See he was really really itchy for the first week outside(like poor thing would try rubbing himself to about everything, including people). So that's when he got the panda eyes(used his hoof to scratch), spots on his chest and more dark around his muzzle. So those areas are definetly from itchyness.
Then other spots like his ear tips, top part of his hind legs, insides of his hinds, around his throath(it was super creepy when I first saw it, though now he has matching mark on the other side) and now under his ears apparead after they went into the pasture even though there was barely anything to rub into. Though now they have access to woody area, which would explain some new 'bald' spots. Though the skin hasn't been really broken anywhere yet, so I suppose that's good. But still weird and vet has no clue... Though the black filly also has some weird spots, but not like Tývar as hers are more focus on the legs and neck. And I've seen her rubbing her neck to the trees and I know she plays it rough with Tývar sometimes... It's just so confusing as no one has any clue why/how/where Tývar keeps getting bald spots as I've never actually seen him rubbing to anything after the first week and he appears to be itch free as well. >_< Vet was pretty clueless when I called her the time when Tývar was super itchy.

That sucks majorly... D: Like for you naturally, but not to mention Grande if the person is really that bad all the time. Do they monitor the leasers at all? As, if it was me leasing a horse to person, I'd keep an eye on leaser and break the deal if there was any mistreatment towards the horse.

[June Bug]

Ah, I was thinking it was still too early for baby fur shed. xD That would also be a pretty drastic color change. If it's 'cause he's itchy, hopefully it won't get so bad he starts rubbing himself raw. bald spots aren't too bad, but raw skin and cuts are not fun.

They'll break the lease if he starts to suffer from it or if she causes an injury or sickness, but just tiring him out won't make them intervene. I may say something to the manager if the same thing happens next time as she essentially made him unable to function for the entire Sunday, which is one of our busiest days.