Over the summer, we've made great progress with the horses (rescues and Dandy). I thank my sister everytime I can for helping me with Pearl. You see... Pearl is A LOT of horse. She is by far the most spirited horse I have ever been around, she is 18 years old and as sound as any 3 year old out there and I have trained anything from weanlings to 6 year old wild horse... Having been thrown quite a bit while trying to train the wild mare (I didn't skip steps, she was perfect on the ground and could lunge with tack, she was... in theory, ready), I had lost most of my confidence on new horses. My experience riding Pearl didn't help... and Pearl knew I was intimidated.
Nowadays, for me to be able to comfortably ride a horse, I have to have previously ridden the horse or watched someone ride the horse for a good amount of time, proving that the horse is safe... and even then, I will not trot them if I don't feel comfortable. I think this is the right thing to do, but I think that I am over-worried sometimes. I will probably get on any horse, but I will not feel relaxed.
Falling from Dandy was a big step too. Dandy was my brick wall, she could support me, take me through anything... I tought her everything she knew and it only took half a second to completely destroy what we had built. Not because she wanted to hurt me, she was truly surprised that I had fallen (I could usually ride anything she dished out). She stopped as soon as I left the saddle and she waited patiently for me to get up (that was hard, the wind was completely knocked out of me and my ankle was hurting really bad), get back on her from the off side and ride without stirrups back to the barn. When I approached her, she lowered her head as if to say "I'm sorry, I know you're hurt". I was completely aware that my fall was entirely my fault, I wasn't paying attention to my horse.
It took me about 2.5 months to build my confidence. I would've never done it alone either, my sister, again, was there to cheer me on! My sister and I are twins and we have a very strong bond. She wouldn't let me give up. I wasn't sure of myself and I would hold back Dandy when the others would be racing by... thankfully, I have a great horse and she wouldn't buck or try to go faster than what was asked. One afternoon, my sister and I were on a ride. It was a beautiful day, sunny but not too warm. We had just made it out of a rough trail. She was on Pearl and I was on Dandy. She asked if I was ready to let Dandy run... I got a bit nervous inside, but took control over my emotions, Dandy wasn't much affected by nervousness. So I decided to go for it... my sister was trying to break Pearl from her pace. Pearl never trotted and only cantered about 4 times to this day. I told her to start it off and that I would follow, We were in a nice open area and had plenty of room to keep this safe. Off she went! Pearl was pacing and boy, was she ever going! I urged Dandy into a canter, her smooth rocking horse canter and saw that I couldn't keep up... My competitive side quickly took over and I pushed Dandy into a run, I had never ran Dandy before. She cought up to Pearl by the end of the run... Pearl had broken her pace and was full-out running. When I stopped Dandy (about 10 seconds later), I had a big smile on my face. That was fun!
We took the horses back to the barn and my sister pointed a few things that I should do to help me be more confident in the saddle.
Since Dandy is so young, I don't usually run her, we only canter slowly only about 5-10 seconds during our rides (once per ride or less). She is now almost 4 years old, I figured she could learn to go a bit faster, I never turn her in our canters. She does amazingly. Dandy was backed at about 2.5 years old. I put in some ground training in the first few months and backed her a little later while still workig on her ground manners. In the first year, our rides only lasted about 10 minutes (our first ride was 5 minutes), then I slowly elongated the time to 15, 20, 30 minutes. When she turned 3, she went from 30 minutes to 1 hour and by the end of the summer, she went on two or three 2 hour trail rides (NO canters!). In her 4th year (after January 2010), I will be working a bit more with her. Right now, I am riding western and want to start on barrels, maybe at the end of the summer, when she is 4.5 years old. Then, I would like to introduce english riding (which I have done for half of my riding life). I would like to train a bit in hunter or cross-country. I DO NOT want to compete in those events, only try them out for fun. Dandy has been free jumped this summer and she presents great scope over jumps.
Peg will not be trained in jumping since she is arthritic, but we might introduce Pearl to low level just for fun!
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Your plans with Dandy will make her a very well rounded horse, I think it's important to have a horse that 'will try anything', be it meander down the trail, chase cows, or pop over a few low jumps. It makes me sad to see people with their super specialized horses, who only know one job, and then fall apart mentally when they are asked to do something different (my childhood friend's father bought her a horse like this, she didn't have much fun with him).
ReplyDeleteDoing different events with her will also prevent her from getting sour, and keep her interested in her job. Keep up the good work.
As for the falling off thing, the first time I came off of Oliver (going to write on my blog about that soon I think), it was an accident on both of our parts, but it didn't stop me being a little shaken by it.
I know... I used to fall off and jump right back on without even thinking about it. I think that because it was Dandy and that it was so odd for her to do something that would make me fall off didn't help in crushing my confidence.
ReplyDeleteAs for the little bit of everything, I like my horse to be able to perform. I will most likely not compete with her even though she could, no doubt about it, but I want her to feel entertained. We sometimes need to move cows, I don't need a professional cuting and reining horse, but it's better to have her work cows a bit in case I really need her to handle cattle. I've moved cattle on foot and tryed to pen them... hard enough, I would've rather been on my horse!!! For the jumps, I plan to start her Classic training soon (as soon as I rack up enough funds to get the tack!). I don't want her to jump too soon in her life either, so I'm not in a rush. Barrels are the same, just to keep her mind busy doing other things. She is already a very reliable trail mount, I want her to be able to jump over creeks, logs and branches if need be... also, I need to build my own confidence and comfort level up to jumping. All I see is that I've become a big coward on a horse! :P