Saturdays Ride

Saturday 24-9-11

Today I finally had a sunny day.. well half of the day at least. But thats all you need for a ride. And that's what I did. I rode.

First because Prince hasn't being exercised in ages I took him down the back and backed him up on the end of my twenty-two foot line thinking- oh yep I'll just stand him there for a bit. Nope! He spun on his hind legs and fired off at a full gallop (I was still holding the loose end which I just let go- there was no way I was going to get rope burn for this!) straight up the hill down the little race (and me thinking oh no! There is no gates shut! What if he goes out on the road!) out to the second-to-the-front paddock. I dashed up there hoping and praying that he hadn't gone on the road only to find him eating grass by the trampoline. Arg!

I caught him and then walked him back down the hill (shutting some gates this time!) and then I backed him up and this time was prepared when he bolted again.

I braced my legs and arms, and to my surprise (I forget how flexible he is) his head snapped around and his feet followed. At this point he had come to the wooden blocks that was almost a bouncer (to much space between it to be a proper one) so he had to do half a stride and then jump, two strides and another half and jump.

This is really really good to do before you ride, especially if they are hyper! It really takes the stuffing out of them. Of course to keep him from being bored I changed it a bit.

The jumps were positioned at ten to five. One jump on the big hand and one on the small. So on all the empty space on the other side (about halfway), I asked him to change to directions. When you are going full blast (extremely fast canter) around a twenty foot circle this is really hard on your horse unless you've done it before at a walk, trot, and slow canter. With the jump combination he was busy, busy, busy! After about four minutes of this I stopped him and gave him a rough rub and a treat. He was blowing a bit. Not much. So I took him around to the back and asked him to side pass about, oh, the whole fence line. He did half of this at a canter (yay! Cantering side pass!), and the other half and a walk.

He did that with a bit more sense then the jumps. So then I asked him to go between the fence and me and then disengage (cross his hind legs over and keep his front feet still). I noticed he moved his front feet and didn't cross his legs. Hmm. So I held his head steady and looked sideways at his butt (he could see what I was looking at from the side of his head) and he disengaged but still didn't cross his legs. So I picked up my carrot stick and tapped his butt. That worked.

Then to relax him I rubbed with the the carrot stick and let him eat (this relaxes him- just the type of horse he is).

I noticed at the beginning he had bucked a lot (I had the saddle on him). So to test whether he was ready to go riding I send him out to do a walk, trot, canter, and gallop on the end of the line. Nothing. So far so great!

I lead him back up to the house and tied him up. It was only then I noticed he was quite hot. Never mind, what I was going to do out riding would cool him down.

I mounted up from the ground (I've only just started this because of his weight- he was too fat!- and it made it too hard to get on him), and rode him down the drive.

When I turned him on to the roadside I just let him stand there, for a few minutes, and then asked him to go.

A few meters from our house I realized there was horses coming up. So I jumped off ( I wasn't going to risk me getting chucked off because of a few horses he wanted to meet!). I walked him past (he kept looking longingly towards their paddock) and I noticed the chestnut Thoroughbred mare was in foal! (Goody! I thought)Also she had a half Arab half Thoroughbred paddock mate near her. There was also a yearling foal in there. Not sure what mare she belong to.

Once past them I mounted up only to have a truck come down the road. I decided to stay on and see what he would do. He did nothing! So that was good.

However I had to keep pushing him him to walk, because he had to stop and look at the holes in the hedge! Finally I got sick of him and just turned him around and mostly trotted him home. That was a bit scary because he used his big huge high stepping trot and to post to that you had to do this- post-post, sit, post-post, sit (instead of post sit post sit-) Very different! For the post-post bit there was practically no touching the seat. Your butt would only brush the seat then bounce back up again.

So I found that I could keep him under control and trot him a lot! Great for confidence!