any equine enthusiasts here?

[insertnamehere]

and i dont mean the sexual kind

[cosmo105]

oh, then no.

[russhie]

Yeah. Why?

[insertnamehere]

im taking lessons. actually just got back from one. todays did not go so well...

do you ride for fun, compete, own your own horse, etc?

[kaiser soze]

Used to ride with my last girlfriend, she had a nice thoroughbred for hunter jumper

didn't do anything too fancy, mostly tearing around the arena

[insertnamehere]

i took lessons in the spring as a PE class though my university, but there were like 11 kids in the class all riding at once and one instructor and so we didnt get to do a whole lot, just walking and trotting. i really liked it and started taking lessons again in september. unfortunately ive not made much progress. i cantered today. almost a full time around the ring. unintentionally. and it ended with me on the ground.

[kaiser soze]

yeah cantering is tricky at first. When learning I would trot 1 lap around the arena and then in the next turn command a canter (it didn't always work), posting is tricky too but once you figure the rhythm it should help.

I never fell off though, even with a buck and rear or two - fun stuff!

[insertnamehere]

i really dont think i should be on this particular horse. hes been a trail horse his whole life and has only begun english training in the past year, and she said whenever he starts to feel overwhelmed or doesnt know what to do he speeds up, so all was well and good till he started to go faster, and my natural fear response was to tigten my legs which got him to cantering, and it just created this downwards spiral of me being terrified and out of control and him going faster and paying less attention to me. she started yelling at me to drop my stirrups and lengthen my reins (which seemed like terrible advice but whatever), so i did, and then i just gave up and dropped the reins and stayed on until physics decided that i shouldnt anymore.

[Helvete]

Anyone for polo?

[Drederick Tatum]

holy shit I love equine.

[miss soul fire]

My 6 year-old cousin loves it.
She's much braver than me.:o

[miss soul fire]

Anyone for polo?

Only the car.(y)

[paul jones]

I misread it as 'engine' at first

[insertnamehere]

engines are pretty cool. they can also get you places, and in fact in modern times are the preferred means of transportation

[paul jones]

engines are pretty cool. they can also get you places, and in fact in modern times are the preferred means of transportation

from equine dependancy to engine dependancy, that's the basic history of the last 200 years there(y)

[russhie]

I loved ponies and horses as a kid so my parents gave me lessons when I turned 13, and I had weekly lessons till I was about 20 and had a small riding accident after which my parents decided to stop paying for them, and I couldn't afford to keep riding.

I did a little bit of competitive showjumping, and got to ride heaps of different horses - I took weekly private classes and once a month borrowed a horse for pony club. I also had maybe 4-5 different instructors, and each of them had a preference for different disciplines, so I got a decent grounding in each. I've been taught by dressage enthusiasts, bush riders, olympic hopefuls...I think I was really lucky to get to do so much in what is considered a pretty short time (in terms of horse sports).

I got to ride former racehorses and olympic standard sporthorses to unbroken ponies and trail horses, with all sorts of temperaments...from bombproof to insane, I loved it. Just before I finished up with my last instructor I was shopping around for a horse of my own and test rode a couple of thoroughbreds which had decent potential as moderately good sporthorses, but my parents didn't agree that a $7,000 horse was a good investment, ha.

Cantering is fun, my favorite horses both had wonderful smooth gaits and you felt like you could canter forever. The first time I cantered (pre riding lessons, ha) I was out riding with friends and I fell off - if you haven't gotten the hang of rising trot or the horse pushes into a reeeeally fast trot before it starts to canter you can get bounced around alot which makes you unbalanced and unprepared for the new gait.

If you squeezed the horse in a panic and it moved into a faster gait then the horse must have some potential (usually horses used for lessons/trail riding are lazy unless you get given the goey ones when they find out you've ridden a bit previously) as a decent ride. Next time you canter, make sure you're asking the horse to do it so you're prepared, sit deep into the saddle, lean back a bit and squeeze the horse into it - it's so much more pleasant that way.

I like talking about horses, I'm a nerd :o

[russhie]

i really dont think i should be on this particular horse. hes been a trail horse his whole life and has only begun english training in the past year, and she said whenever he starts to feel overwhelmed or doesnt know what to do he speeds up, so all was well and good till he started to go faster, and my natural fear response was to tigten my legs which got him to cantering, and it just created this downwards spiral of me being terrified and out of control and him going faster and paying less attention to me. she started yelling at me to drop my stirrups and lengthen my reins (which seemed like terrible advice but whatever), so i did, and then i just gave up and dropped the reins and stayed on until physics decided that i shouldnt anymore.

If a horse bolts, or picks up speed, the best (and hardest thing) to do is stay calm. Your instructor was possibly telling you to drop your heels down in your stirrups which will relax your legs, and the horse will feel the pressure ease off and maybe quiet down a bit. She would have told you to let the reins out a bit because the horse moves its head alot more when it canters - horses don't like the bit pulling excessively at their mouths and it's a biiig misconception that the way to stop a horse is to pull harder at the reins. With lots of horses it can cause increased panic and fear, and their natural instinct is to try and run from whatever it is that stresses them out. Which, in your case, worked out well for the horse because when you fell off, the things that might have caused it stress (squeezing/pulling) stopped.

They're smart creatures too, so it's not always a case of them being scared - some will push you to see what you can handle and run off with you when they know you're not confident enough to stop them. The trick is to be firm, and always be the boss. If they're getting to be a handful, get their attention back - gently pull one rein, then the next, turning their head slightly until their focus is back, or ask them to move in a different direction. I used to like pushing them into that sideways walk thing (I forget the technical name, it's been ages) which forces them to concentrate and listen to you again.

Admittedly though, thats all pretty hard when you think the animal beneath you is going to run you into a fence or something.

[insertnamehere]

she told me when we started that every few weeks she would give me a different horse, and said she wanted to give me more difficult horses.... but i dont feel ready for difficult horses. she told me before hand that if i squeezed/kicked this one at all he would take off and that once he got to cantering he didnt like to stop. i dont think you should take someone who is obviously nervous going fast who has never cantered and put them on a horse that you can make go on accident and then cant make stop.

after the fall the horse and i both seemed pretty unhappy about it... i was shaken up and he was either feeling bad for hurting me or being scared that he was in trouble... anyway we just walked the rest of the lesson.

i feel like i suck at all this horse stuff. this makes my second fall, and alltogether i think ive ridden about 20 times. i really enjoy riding and i like horses. i dont know, i guess im just a nervous, unconfident person and it gives me problems sometimes. i think riding is good for me mentally for this very reason. when i started out i was like, scared to tell the horse what to do if he wasnt listening cause i didnt want to make this 1000lb animal that i was trusting my life to mad at me. last week my horse was being a butt the entire lesson and acting pissy and when i got off he tried to bite me (got my pants) and i punched him in the neck. i felt pretty accomplished for standing up to him instead of just bineg like waaahhhh he bit meeeee

before anyone yells at me for punching him, its a giant horse for godssake and you have to let them know you're in charge even if they are 10x bigger than you. it wasnt a hard punch. get off my back.

[russhie]

She shouldn't put you on horses you don't feel ready to ride. Confidence is a big thing with riding, the horses can feel it/a lack of it. Maybe tell her you don't want goey, difficult horses. I'm glad I spent most of my early lessons kicking the shit out of some lazy ass horse because putting me on a more touchy horse would have ruined my confidence.

I remember once trying to jump a few barrels on my this horse i'd been riding for a year or so, we'd done much bigger jumps together before, but those were poles and this was barrels and so they look that much more intimidating. He baulked the first time I cantered him to them, I was already nervous and he really just didn't want to do it, which made me think "I can't" (trust me, if you've ever made a horse jump something when you fuck up strides, or it's leery about the jump, or it stops and then thinks "ok I'll go over now" you'll know the fear of jumping a horse which isn't 100% committed to the job). And so he refused everytime I tried. My instructor got on, got him to pop over the barrels easily a few times, gave him back to me, and he refused. All because I wasn't confident enough to give him the confidence to carry me over them.

They're smart.

[insertnamehere]

yeah. ive had a lot of issues with a lot of horses and its mostly my lack of confidence/assertiveness.

i always had issues with my lessons i took in the spring and not being able to get my horses to trot. i just found out like two weeks ago that ive been kicking wrong the whole time. but it made me afraid to ask for the trot because id sit there and try to kick the crap out of them unsuccesfully and then when they eventually would go into a trot i wasnt ready for it, id get off balance, theyd stop, and the whole process would start over again.

she pointed out why i sucked at kicking on a hose that required a lot of kicking. i rode him for two lessons and got to really like him. it got awhile to get used to kicking all the time and posting was a little odd because he had a really short stride, but once i got used to him i really liked him. and it was obvious that once i got confortable with him he got more comfortable with me and everything was sunshine and kittens.

i'll be on him for the first time i canter (at least on purpose) because she said hes really good about stopping whereas a lot of their schooling horses apparently once they get going they wont slow down.

[jabumbo]

so, not really understanding the terminology, i had to look up what exactly a canter was and....


does anybody else think that its a very unusual step pattern? maybe its the whole "i have 2 legs so how you move with 4 is weird", but still

[insertnamehere]

i think most 4 legged animals have the same general step patterns as a horse, you just dont pay attention or call it anything when your dog is doing it because your safety isnt dependent on understanding how your dog moves

[insertnamehere]

i wish i could take more than one lesson a week. i technically probably shouldnt even be paying for that. im paying for it myself with my shitty part time job college student income. it really interferes with my drinking money.

i always get really ants the day after my lesson and want to go back to do a better job.

i prefer big ponies. right around the horse/pony cutoff is a good size for me. ive got short little legs and im more comfortable being closer to the ground. the place im riding now doesnt have any ponies i can ride (they have little ponies for kids) but most of their horses arent huge. the one i rode yesterday was a little taller than i'd like. i get nervous dismounting. im such a puss.

[MC Moot]

I've been bucked,I've been bitten and I've been hoofed...so,no,not so much...but they are beautiful,intuitive and I've never eaten them on purpose...

[russhie]

Sometimes horses used for lessons and trail riding develop hard mouths cause of the limited experience new riders have. So they can be pretty dangerous and hard to pull up. The worst riding experience I ever had was on a hard mouthed horse, it was almost impossible to pull up.

[insertnamehere]

he was really unhappy about taking the bit, so he may have had some bad experiences mouth-wise. he also blew up like crazy when i was doing his girth. i think he's just in general not been treated the best over the course of his life