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riding log
Apr. 27th, 2007 05:27 pmI finally returned to riding lessons today! I got to ride Guiness again, and he's just wonderful. He was hyper at first and a little spooky, but he calmed down. I still need to work on using seat more than hands, especially for halts, because his mouth is so sensitive. (I sort of wonder how he'd go without a bit, in an English-style hackamore. Windrush uses them for a lot of therapeutic riding students, so they are available. But he may need more control than a hackamore would provide.)
Today's lesson was taught by Marge, who rode with us on her ancient and excessively well-trained mare Quadrille. It was a lesson in *bending* the horses around curves, at walk, trot and canter. Guiness *will* bend but he has to be reminded to do so. We also tried turn on the haunches, which isn't easy!
Guiness is a funny horse. He's really smart, but also very herd-oriented. He'll go to the other horses in an instant if one isn't paying attention. I suppose this isn't surprising since he ran with a herd for the first four years of his life. I found myself strategizing a lot about how to either keep him ahead of the other two horses, or far enough back that he wouldn't run up on them. (He's also very fast, even faster than Bearito, and getting to his buddies motivates him to move out!)
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goddessfarmer, he's reminding me a lot of Minnie, with brains added. And I really want to visit her soon...
Hippotherapy went well, and was therapeutic for me, because rather than leading, I was sidewalking, which meant keeping my left forearm across a child's leg to help him stay on. MY left shoulder, which was the one that was so badly frozen a few years back, complained like hell for the first 10 minutes, but then it stopped hurting at all. So, good for me as well as the kid! (The kid in question has severe ADD and also some sort of birth injury which damaged his right side, so his hippotherapy includes a lot of right-side strengthening exercises. He's a cute kid and a pretty good rider when we can keep him focused.)
Today's lesson was taught by Marge, who rode with us on her ancient and excessively well-trained mare Quadrille. It was a lesson in *bending* the horses around curves, at walk, trot and canter. Guiness *will* bend but he has to be reminded to do so. We also tried turn on the haunches, which isn't easy!
Guiness is a funny horse. He's really smart, but also very herd-oriented. He'll go to the other horses in an instant if one isn't paying attention. I suppose this isn't surprising since he ran with a herd for the first four years of his life. I found myself strategizing a lot about how to either keep him ahead of the other two horses, or far enough back that he wouldn't run up on them. (He's also very fast, even faster than Bearito, and getting to his buddies motivates him to move out!)
goddessfarmer, he's reminding me a lot of Minnie, with brains added. And I really want to visit her soon...Hippotherapy went well, and was therapeutic for me, because rather than leading, I was sidewalking, which meant keeping my left forearm across a child's leg to help him stay on. MY left shoulder, which was the one that was so badly frozen a few years back, complained like hell for the first 10 minutes, but then it stopped hurting at all. So, good for me as well as the kid! (The kid in question has severe ADD and also some sort of birth injury which damaged his right side, so his hippotherapy includes a lot of right-side strengthening exercises. He's a cute kid and a pretty good rider when we can keep him focused.)
