When Penny sold, I kept looking for a place to ride. I had lived so long with horses, riding 2 to 5 times a week. I didn't have a job at the time so leasing was out of the question. Of course, if I had known then the people that I know today, I would've never had to look anywhere, horses would've just kept coming!
Unfortunately, I was young and I knew nobody else that had horses. I spent the next 8 years going on yearly two hour dude rides... I was getting bored; dude horses just weren't trained enough, let alone responsive enough for me. Cantering with a dude horse proved to be dangerous! Three broken ribs and a very sore neck later, I realized that those horses weren't safe away from their buddies, in a line up. That day, one of my friends who had no horse experience lost his hat, being the goody good person I am, I went back with my horse to get it, after picking it up, I turned back towards the line up, they were already heading to the barn, my horse broke into a canter, bucking as he went along, I was unable to hold on or stop him, I ate dirt, hard! This wasn't working for me, I wanted my own horse so that I could ride whenever I wanted, wherever I wanted, however I wanted.
I spent all of those years looking through classified ads every day, for someone offering a horse to ride or exercise for free, but I didn't have jumper, dressage or professionnal show experience. I considered myself an experienced rider but I was loosing that experience with every day that passed...
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I think a lot of riders have had that same awful experience on a "Dude" horse.
ReplyDeleteMine was when I was 9, so I'd been riding for two years. We went to PEI to visit some friends, who thought it would be a great idea to appease the "horsey" kids by taking us (my sister and I) on a "trail ride" at a nearby tourist park.
The ponies were so dead sided I could barely boot mine into a jog to catch up with my Dad at the head of the line. Apparently these ponies go in the same order, every day, so when I broke this order, all heck broke loose. I didn't fall, but the nice people we visited did. We didn't do many "horsey" things on the island after that wonderful experience.
Oh No! How awful... I remember that my horse was jumpy and was in constant competition with another horse on the trail, wanting to be in front of him when we got to the end of the trail and when we got back to the barn. When I stopped him and took him further from his friends, he noticed that the horse (the one he was competing against) was nearly at the barn and he was still in the middle of the field. Usually he was dead sided (I got him more than once before that ride) but that day, he was completely different. There was no way to hold him back, those dude horses have every trick in the book to evade pressure (because they are constantly being tugged on, kicked and jurked around). I corrected him many times on the trail... but that time, I just couldn't hang on. At that time, I didn't have lessons under my belt either, I guess it would've helped a bit.
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