Much better riding lesson
Mar. 30th, 2007 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quietannOnce again, Bearito went to K1 to help her build confidence in cantering. She was so apologetic about it, even though I kept telling her that I don't *have* to ride Bearito. I think she felt bad about me having such an awful time on Judge last week.
So I rode Guiness, who oddly enough was the horse that threw K1 about six months ago and caused her fear of cantering. (He spooked at the canter and K1 went over his head and right into a wall... ouch!) And I like him!
He's a smallish (14.2 hand) ~10 year old buckskin mustang gelding, complete with the BLM brand on his neck. He was captured at 4 years of age, given some training, and came to Windrush about 4 years ago. Like most mustangs, he's *smart*; they don't survive on the range if they are not. The BLM "Adopt-A-Horse" program to thin out the mustang population (basically so more cows can be grazed on very fragile Western land, grrr) has been a boondoggle in so many ways, with a lot of the "adopted" horses going straight to slaughter, every time the BLM finds another loophole to allow mass "adoptions." So it's nice to see that sometimes it works the way it should.
So. He reminds me a lot of Minnie, except with way more sense. He's quick and sensitive and responsive, and pays attention to *everything*. He did spook once with me, but it was very minor. Tina told me that for some reason he's way more spooky when the weather is cold; he actually gets bad enough that he isn't ridden a whole lot in the winter. But in the summertime, the day camp kids fight over who gets to ride him! I can see why. He's actually a very loveable horse; he doesn't mind being hugged, and enjoys scritches and praise, and he has excellent ground manners.
We did a huge amount of work without stirrups, including a lot of shoulder-in and leg yielding at the walk and trot. Guiness has a nice prancy slow trot, but at times he wanted to pick up the pace a bit and he'd get annoyed at having to slow down. He also has a *very* soft mouth and I had to keep reminding myself to treat it like butter and use my legs to move him into the bit. Tina thought I did pretty well most of the time. I need to work more on staying up straight and not looking down when I'm concentrating on something on horseback. "Look where you are going" is the rule.
Towards the end of the lesson, we each cantered separately, and then all three together since we were all doing well. That was new for K1 and K2, though not for me. K1 still is unsure about Bearito; she had a terrible time *slowing him down*. If you know horses and saw the little guy, you'd understand why; he has a HUGE muscled neck and he will just take hold and pull.
So I rode Guiness, who oddly enough was the horse that threw K1 about six months ago and caused her fear of cantering. (He spooked at the canter and K1 went over his head and right into a wall... ouch!) And I like him!
He's a smallish (14.2 hand) ~10 year old buckskin mustang gelding, complete with the BLM brand on his neck. He was captured at 4 years of age, given some training, and came to Windrush about 4 years ago. Like most mustangs, he's *smart*; they don't survive on the range if they are not. The BLM "Adopt-A-Horse" program to thin out the mustang population (basically so more cows can be grazed on very fragile Western land, grrr) has been a boondoggle in so many ways, with a lot of the "adopted" horses going straight to slaughter, every time the BLM finds another loophole to allow mass "adoptions." So it's nice to see that sometimes it works the way it should.
So. He reminds me a lot of Minnie, except with way more sense. He's quick and sensitive and responsive, and pays attention to *everything*. He did spook once with me, but it was very minor. Tina told me that for some reason he's way more spooky when the weather is cold; he actually gets bad enough that he isn't ridden a whole lot in the winter. But in the summertime, the day camp kids fight over who gets to ride him! I can see why. He's actually a very loveable horse; he doesn't mind being hugged, and enjoys scritches and praise, and he has excellent ground manners.
We did a huge amount of work without stirrups, including a lot of shoulder-in and leg yielding at the walk and trot. Guiness has a nice prancy slow trot, but at times he wanted to pick up the pace a bit and he'd get annoyed at having to slow down. He also has a *very* soft mouth and I had to keep reminding myself to treat it like butter and use my legs to move him into the bit. Tina thought I did pretty well most of the time. I need to work more on staying up straight and not looking down when I'm concentrating on something on horseback. "Look where you are going" is the rule.
Towards the end of the lesson, we each cantered separately, and then all three together since we were all doing well. That was new for K1 and K2, though not for me. K1 still is unsure about Bearito; she had a terrible time *slowing him down*. If you know horses and saw the little guy, you'd understand why; he has a HUGE muscled neck and he will just take hold and pull.
