One of the best ways to figure out how well your horse is going is to ride another horse and compare. More experienced or greener than yours- doesn't matter- your experience in the saddle will tell you what you need to know.
I did just that yesterday. I rode a friend's new mare, a green 12 year old. Cute cute cute, but when my friend said its like riding a brick wall, I didn't think much of it. Until I got on. Yowsa.
Cute & fast honest little mare- but has zero flexion in any part of her body, and one of the hardest mouths I've felt in a long time! But she just needs to be worked with, and would be really easy to turn around. She was easier to work with at a trot- i was able to get her soften faster at a working trot, asking her to go more forward than she wanted to, which tends to slow a quick horse down, and soften too.
I had to work for that ride- really really work. Mentally and physically. I then realized how far Cabo has come because in some respects, he started out like this mare. Very tense, probably due to his previous injury, stiff and unbending. Sure, he had some 'give' in his mouth, like he new how to be put into a 'headset' (which i DETEST and refuse to ever do and yet see it a lot out here, mostly in the western pleasure-gone-'english' variety of riders), but his body was not connected at all. So, even though we haven't done a whole lot of riding together, he has really come a long way in that time. Nice to see!
That brings me to my next rant. Its my blog so I can say it. I need to find a way to deal with this because one day my brain might just explode while riding. Here goes. I hate the way I hear "English" being used to describe the discipline. I'm sorry, there is a whole lot more to it than throwing on an all purpose saddle, a d-bit and posting on a tr-alking horse. Don't fiddle the nose down by sawing side-to-side because you no longer have a leverage bit. The western version of hunt seat riding, called "English" drives me bonkers, and is beginning to do so more and more.
And I hate answering the "oh you ride english? I do too." line. Cuz yes, i use an english saddle 99% of the time, even on trails. But no, I do not "ride english" the way you ride english. So don't ask me about my horse's headset, or how I can stand to be in an english saddle that long (a *gasp* dressage saddle, though that often goes unnoticed). I don't ask you if you ride "western" nor do i make claims that I ride "western" because I own a saddle with a horn. I realize there is more to it than making your horse's head touch the ground going as slow as possible.
Ok, rant over.
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you know i started saying that i ride a horse how ever i feel like riding that day. if i pick up an english saddle, i may neck rein and not post. or if its a western i might post and plow rein. that doesnt mean i ride either english or western. i ride how i feel comfortable and how the horse is trained. i got alot of slack when i was starting joey. a horse accquantiance had to put her nose in and give me crap about sitting forward and riding with 2 hands in a western saddle. my only answer to her was "have you ever restarted an abused horse? worked with a rescue horse?" her answer was no so i said " when you have worked with either kind of horse you will understand why i ride the way i do. you never know whats going to happen and sitting forward is alot more comfortable for a rescue who like cabo was, beaten so bad that when you sat your seat down he wiggled and got nervous." i even got slack when i sent out the videos you took of me riding joey. people dont understand that others ride differently then they do. people are different. your doing a great job with cabo. i just wish i could have done him better and that our lives didnt take the turn it did. when you gonna put up pictures of my favorite boy???
ReplyDeleteI hear ya. I hate the generalizations that people make- it makes me feel like the YEARS of long hard work & study with my jumper and dressage trainers were all for nothing- because, afterall, all I had to do was slap on a saddle with no horn and ride with 2 hands, right? LOL. If only that was all there was to it!
ReplyDeleteI am going to try to get pictures and video of him this weekend. If my husband comes out to the barn I am going to task him with this, so then there will definitely be pictures of him under tack and being ridden.
But then again, i've been planning to take pictures of both of them for, oh, 2 weeks now and havent gotten around to it. LOL. So much more helpful when there is an assistant around!
I keep telling myself that I am going to get new pictures of Miss Ally pants and had wanted to get some of us during her first 2 rides. Today people were asking what horse she was and if she was new. She has grown so much and matured even more. Its scarey. Maybe when I start riding again I can get my lovely hubby to come out and take pictures for me. But then again I have been bugging him to take pictures of my belly for those who wanna see how big I am getting. He took horrible pictures the other day and promised to take better ones. We shall see.... I may have to have his neice take them for me. I need to find a photo taker for when I need one...
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