Do You Ride Horses? V.4

[ryukrem]

hi, I was wondeing when you work off a half lease, would you still need to pay any bills? I did lease a pony, but that was a long time ago.

I have a half lease and besides paying for the lease I have to pay half farrier.
No vet bills.

[Balmino]

hi, I was wondeing when you work off a half lease, would you still need to pay any bills? I did lease a pony, but that was a long time ago.

I used to half lease. It was great, since you'd pay a weekly small sum of money for the horse itself, but you wouldn't need to pay any bills, such as vet, farrier, worming, etc. These are the owner's responsibility. But this can vary depending on the horse's owner really, but half leasing should not involve the leaser paying any bills except from their weekly payment which goes towards the upkeep of the horse ^^
However, if you were to full lease, then you are responsible for the horse and therefore you would need to pay all bills.

[LissaJo]

hi, I was wondeing when you work off a half lease, would you still need to pay any bills? I did lease a pony, but that was a long time ago.

most of the time the lease amount figures in half of farrier bills.. the owner is responsible for normal vet bills, just make sure the lease terms spell out emergency vet bills - if the horse is injured while you are riding it due to normal circumstances/an accident, you may be required to pay for it (because.. well horses. they trip over air. and magically get hurt off of nothing)

[Hime]

@MiloThePitbull: Honestly with the amount of work she does(4 hours is considered fairly lot, unless it would be mostly walking), I don't think she can get totally our of shape. Sure she looks tad chubby on the belly area, but most average horses often are.

@Leasing vs. Buying: Lot of good points already said I think. With leasing lot of things depend on the leasing contract and type of lease. Like is it full lease or not. With full lease you usually are in same situation as you'd be when owning a horse. You are resposible for all the cost and care related things. Pro is that you don't need to pay for the horse itself and often you might get to use it's own tack as well. Also if your life situation changes and you can no longer keep the horse, it's usually fairly easy to end the lease and give the horse back to it's owner. Physically at least, down side is if you get easily attached it might be emotionally hard when the lease comes to an end. Half lease etc. deals are pretty nice when you feel like gaining more independant riding/horse experience. You usually pay the owner small fee for using their horse(10-20e is pretty common here per one riding day), but other than that it's mostly enjoy type of deal for leaser. There may be bit more limitations on what you can do with the horse, but it really depends on the case.
I do think when leasing you should be extra careful and responsible with the horse, as it's not actually yours but rather someone else's. And that someone else wants that horse back in good condition. I've heard way too many bad lease stories where the horse was returned in bad shape and more than often lame. Accidents happen of course, especially with horses, but certain things can be prevented by being smart.
Owning is a love-hate thing really. You get the horse all to yourself and pretty much free hands to anything you want to(just try be smart though), but at the same time you are 100% resposible of it's everything. Cost vise you need to save up for the purchase price and then still have enough for emergency vet and all the running costs, like farrier and boarding. And if your life suddenly changes so that it gets hard to keep a horse, it may be hard to have it sold or leased out quick.

@the dreamer: When it comes to ski joring, I'd definetly choose a horse for it based on temperament rather than size. If the horse has experience from pulling stuff that that's a huge plus.

@Summer or winter: Both have their pros and cons. Winter is very pretty time here if we have snow, but it can also be very cold. And if we don't have snow then it's just lousy and dark. Summer time I love for riding and also swimming, but Heta doesn't like that season due her summer itch... Can I say April-May? Warm enough usually so that I don't have to bundle up in clothes, but no bugs out yet, so I don't have to itch rug Heta.
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Snow, snow, snow, snow! Whippee! As usual we had terrible dark black December and now that it's January the weather is cooling down and it started to snow yesterday so that we had lovely layer of snow by the eventing. Then it didn't snow during night or this morning, but now it's been snowing for good couple hours and the amount of snow has doubled. Pretty happy as the arena was horribly hard yesterday when I tried to long rein Heta some. Mostly had to work her in walk and too just little bit of trot to get her going. I've also noticed she has less muscle behind her left shoulder than right, which could be from compensating another leg or someting else. Left front is also the leg that is sort of lame-ish, but not really lame. It's complicated, but I tested out somethings and if I put a weight boot on that leg she uses it as much as the right one. Though now I'm really starting to suspect she got bone spavin acting up on both of her hocks... : P Vets coming over tomorrow to vaccinate Tý and Feykja and treat/check several other horses, but unfortunately they didn't have X-ray machine available for that day anymore when I asked about it just before New Year. So that will have to wait until February I think, since that's the next time we have vet needs.

[Balmino]

@All who have been around horses - don't be an idiot like me today and not look where your horse's hooves are. After Gracie spooked at a bird I was given a broken toe ;-; She stood on it and hooooly hoof it HURT! ^v^'

So anyways, Gracie seems to be getting a bit bossy since becoming the boss of everyone in the field... I was kinda hoping that some horse would show her who is boss but it seems she's the boss of all of them and continues to win the mini field fights they have. This is making her think she's the boss of me now, so we went back to the basics of groundwork again today to remind her who is really the leader. It's amazing how her relationship with other horses can have an impact on how bossy she feels -w-' Ah well, she's a baby and she's going to test her boundaries, there's no doubt of that, but she acts like a proper moody mare sometimes x'D

Also I have a question, do you guys turn out your horses in winter at all? Grace gets turned out 2 hours for a few days a week since we have very limited winter turnout (and because she keeps breaking the fences oops) but I know a lot of people who keep their horses in all winter...

[cashew jackman]

Oh that terrible, crazy feeling you get when you want to ride but can't! It's been two months since I sat on a horse and I miss it! Bad weather is to blame. Anyone else go crazy when you can't ride? Horses are an addiction!

[Lincoln]

Oh that terrible, crazy feeling you get when you want to ride but can't! It's been two months since I sat on a horse and I miss it! Bad weather is to blame. Anyone else go crazy when you can't ride? Horses are an addiction!

Happening to me right now. I'm hoping to be out by next Wednesday

[Luzien]

@ the captain:
i understand that fully with no riding...such a long time it is now already for me...

but bad weather i dont understand....
what is bad for you rain storms, hail, a lot of snow, lots of ice....or extrem hot?

@ Balmino
yes a broken toe hurt much^^ but luckily it health fast on its own....should atleast^^
that with the herd will come with time, and when she gets to much on the nerve of the other they will Show her her place soon^^

maybe do more groundwork with her, give her a bit more work .
let her step back each time when you go in the pasture, give her feed as the last one, bring her to follow you.

2 hours are not really much turnout time for a horse... but yes some dont let them out at all, so it ok.
we let our horses out in the morning and did bring them in in the afternoon,each day, in winter.
use electric wire and maybe even woud to make the paddock-pasture more secure, the best is a second wire line a bit behind the first (20-30cm)

@ the dreamer
i would first Train the hores on long reining...with some pulling training like you would do with a horse in training for driving like hime did say, then the horse you want to use needs to stop asap when you tell it too, to be safe...
mybe do it with a rider on the horse back...some horse work well without a rider but other are bether off with one...

@ Hime
great that yu also got snow
we also had a mix of snow and rain, and storm and warm weather^^
i think the pony will love when more snow now^^

poor Heta hope she is bether soon...and i hope she only got kicked

[ryukrem]

So let's talk about equitation yo. I blurred out my face so cs doesnt get mad at me.

As I've mentioned before, I've had Alice for a year. It seems as though my equitation problems haven't changed much:

1) My leg always slips forward!
If I try and keep it back, my body leans forward a lot. But if I lean back and sit in the saddle like I'm supposed to, my leg slips forward.
Mind you, Alice's saddle is the worst saddle I've ever sat in and we are having saddle fit issues. Her owner and I don't have the money to get a custom made saddle, which she honestly needs because she has funky shoulders. So we do what we can with what we have.

2) I always tip forward and can't keep my shoulders back, which isn't incredibly obvious in these photos but it's there.
Lately, Alice has been pulling so hard into the contact. We are stuck in a place where I can only get her in a frame by playing tug of war, so we are trying to work on that. God, she's strong tho.

3) I cannot bend my elbows!
This drives me insane because I just can't seem to do it.

If anybody would like to provide constructive criticism on how to fix these things, I would greatly appreciate it!

Here's a video for better reference to my riding if you want.

[lilac sky]

Thank you all!