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SnowyShiloh wrote:
Ooooh, she's gorgeous, chub and all! I want a horse. Quick question, is it reasonable to have a horse but not want to ride it? I don't really like riding horses but I love taking care of them and patting them and watching them do their horsey things.
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I'd say it depends on the horse really. Some horses love being ridden and would get very bored and miserable if they weren't, but some are quite happy justto spend all day out in the field. Also, horses are a lot more expensive to buy and keep than say, a cat, dog or rabbit, soa horse would be a very expensive animaljustto have as apet! I agree with you though, asalthough I ride quite a bit, having that bond with mySmokey and spending time with him on the ground is a lot more important to me than riding.Having a large, flight animal that will follow you around, listen to your tiniest body movementand come for cuddles is a lovely experience.:D



Rio looks great on the lunge Laura. She has quite a powerful walk doesn't she?:)
 
Oh Laura, many congrats on Rio. I saw in another place that you weren't sure if you were getting her or not - I'm so pleased for you.

She is gorgeous, and looks great on the lunge considering you've only just got her and she isn't used to you yet.

I really miss horse riding! There is something very special about riding and having all that power beneath you, yet the respect you share is amazing. Good luck!

Jan
 
So I took my dressage friend out to see Rio today and she LOVES her. It was snowing and she was feeling good, she was showing off for my friend. I can't wait to see how she jumps but she has some serious potential for English with how she moves (and she is cute over ground poles).
 
MyBabyBunnies wrote:
So I took my dressage friend out to see Rio today and she LOVES her. It was snowing and she was feeling good, she was showing off for my friend. I can't wait to see how she jumps but she has some serious potential for English with how she moves (and she is cute over ground poles).
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I definitely saw an English extended trot (in her walk lol) and she is adorable! I'm just so excited for you! Lexi is also. She said "OMG! She's GORGEOUS, MOM!" and she believes she's going to be really cute in English! She'd also be really cute in our pasture! :biggrin2:
 
Aww what a gorgeus horse!
I used to do some showjumping but not anymore cause the instructor was so mean and totally sucked the fun out of it.
 
Sorry BBB, but I'm pretty sure she looks better in the pasture she's in. :p

So I got my saddle today, fit it on her, she was good but I realised she has never had a saddle on her without a saddle pad on because she freaks out if you try to put it on without a saddle pad. :| What a dork.

Lunged her a bit, just some transitions so get her used to the commands again (she is great with TROT, but the rest... LOL). I'm trying not to get her too fit before I get on her, my friend warned me that it's best to get on them when they are fat and lazy, ha ha.
 
LOL I never thought of that last part..... however, we try to wear them out a bit when we want to work on things like "steering" and "slowing" a trot for Western Pleasure..... which I might add Dakota was doing the most adorable WP trot (jog) yesterday! :biggrin2:

I'm pretty sure Rio would look really cute standing next to Pokie.... we could compare dorsal stripes and big built/muscular quarter horse mares.... yep.... ;)


ETA: Everytime I scroll up and see her I get jealous of you! LOL! She's SO pretty!
 
I'm so proud of Rio. I've spent the last week doing everything I can think of doing to her.

I've saddled her and lunged her with the stirrups down and with her bridle on.

I've stood on the stool beside her and played with the saddle and leaned over her and touched her other side and she's stood perfectly still.

I've lunged her over jumps. And she was so brave over the big white poles. She never backed off or refused to jump, she did knock the rails down but I'm not worried about that now because when she did actually put some effort into it, she cleared it no problem. I'm just happy she didn't seem afraid of it!

I've started ground driving her (this was more difficult than anything, it's really hard to teach her to walk in front of me instead of facing me but I did get her to turn both ways by the end of our first lesson.

I'm hoping to be on her back by middle of next week.

RioMay23-4.jpg


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She's so good!! How exciting!
My mom used to put a sandbag on their saddle to get them used to it...
Bombproofing is important. Sounds like you've started that already. Some things we have done is:
1. plastic bag on a stick.... wave it around, touch them with it, all that.
2. balloons... same thing.
3. noises: whoopie cushion lol, air horn, car horn (Pokie knows it comes from the car now cause we took her to the car to hear it - she likes the car and sticks her head in the window if the a/c is on!!), metal pots banged, anything you can think of.
4. Running the bobcat right behind them (Kota doesn't even move now if someone is on it and working - it's actually annoying!!)
5. Put a tarp on the ground and have her walk over the edge.. slowly make her walk over it (leave it a bit billowy) Kota had to see me do it first! LOL!
6. PUDDLES! Those hoof-eating-water-monsters!!!
 
I know all that stuff, problem is I can't teach her to walk through puddles because I need to teach her to JUMP them, lol. Tarps are the same thing. In absense of water, people use tarps on the ground to act as water.

Anyways, I'm not going to do the bags until I've been on her because I'm afraid that scaring her that much might set us back. But she's a pretty mellow horse that has been really well desensitized, she's used to cars driving past her, she's used to tractors around her, I'm just not sure I want to do the bags right now. I might see about taking my dad out one day, he can't actually go near her because she doesn't trust him, but at least if he's there, I can lay across her back, I just need to get her understanding the bit before I attempt to lay across her if I can't have anyone hold her still.

I've been getting her used to ropes all over her too and she's good with it.
 
OMG gorgeous! I have a solid red dun appy, no spots on him, and we had a golden dun QH gelding up until he passed last year. I love my QH's and Appy's. I'm veyr happy to hear her training is going well.

And SnowyShiloh, I don't see why not. My arabian mare, she was a rescue that no one had time or money to bring her back to shape, she just loafs in the pasture, we play games and I do take a ton of walks with her around the farm. she does go out under saddle(or bareback) a few times a year, but I usually take Phoenix, my appy, since he's taller(15.3 hh vs 14.2 and 1/2)and more built.
 
Well I've done a lot of work with Rio this week. I've ground drove her, I've laid across the saddle, I've lunged her with an old pair of jeans filled with dirt on her back, and I even got on her!

On Wednesday I was feeling brave and she was being really good so I bit the bullet and after using the stirrup to lay over her back, I decided to just swing my other leg over and sit on her for a few seconds. She was AMAZING! She didn't move. I was really happy with her so I stopped there.

Well on Thursday I went to do it again and she was quite bad. Every time I lifted my foot to put it in the stirrup, she would swing her butt away so I couldn't get my foot in the stirrup. Eventually I had to use the round pen fence to keep her from moving away and an hour and a half after I started working with her, I finally got on her. When she realised I was on her back, she scooted forwards and turned in a small circle. Once she stopped I dismounted, she was good about it and I stopped the lesson there. I really had only wanted to teach her I wont tolerate her avoiding me getting on her and hopefully she got the message.

Then after her little scoot forward with me on her back (it was more of a short bolt forwards, and all that was running through my head was "oh no... here we go" as I was sure she was going to run around the pen trying to dislodge that thing on her back, lol) I decided to do things a little different on Friday (for my safety), I took my friend's idea about attaching jeans with dirt in them to a surcingle so she gets used to weight on her back and something moving around against her sides. She was really good, for the first 5 minutes she was attached to me, I could not get her to move away from me (you could tell she trusts me and was using me for reassurance).

Anyways, I hope to actually ride her for the first time either today or tomorrow. My friend is coming out tomorrow to walk her around the pen while I'm on her back so hopefully that will go good! I'm so excited and she's doing decently well, even if she has her moments.
 
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