Riding out of green tunnels
I haven't updated for a bit because I've been crazy busy, but such is life.
Life with my mare has progressed quite well although she has missed a bit of work due to a weekend off being a geek with the live roleplayers and one riding shires. When I'm home we ride most days, however and she's doing really well. I am finally learning how to be effective with the whole of my leg rather than having that weird noobish belief that if I need to have more of an effect I need to use my heel somehow. Now I can find that feeling through my whole calf and inside leg, which is making a really pleasant change in our work. Also we have been using the snaffle bit as she's had plenty of time to heal up after her dentistry now and I have been able to get tacked up and get on without feeling that she needs any other preparation. She's a little bit silly sometimes but generally she has been outstanding and shown very little difference in her response to the bridle and sidepull, which one would hope for as they are quite similar in action.
Today I had planned to ride her off the yard for the first time and as the weather was dry we figured the plan could be put into action.
We stepped out of the yard, with herecirm on foot, and marched off very briskly down the lane. Maybe a little more briskly than one would ask for if I'm honest, but Iris had a lot of anxiety in her and she just wanted to be moving, so we stomped off down the road. I had been worried that Cash would come galloping over as we passed the field, but happily he had some grass to eat so he didn't really mind us leaving.
A few hundred yards down the lane we stepped out onto a drive to let some cyclists pass ( not a problem ) then waited while some horses went by, which was a bit more tricky but we survived. Once they were out of sight we set off down the lane again. This part of the ride was quite joggy and tense on mare's part. At the bottom of the road we passed some scary rubble bags, then a big 4x4 with a horse trailer wanted to pass and Iris was not entirely alright with it so we went back past them and followed them up the road a bit, so she could understand that they were a timorous beast and no danger to her.
We got out onto the common, passing Small Pony on the way through, and went for the shortest possible loop, down one path and up the other with about a hundred yards of trail in between. As we reached the path back, the horses who had passed us earlier were heading the same way.
Iris watches horses approach.
This was a bit exciting, especially as the last horse onto the trail wanted to jump up and down a bit and be silly about things, so I took Iris up the other way and spent a few minutes just using lots of changes of bend and direction to get her paying a bit more attention before we made our way into the narrow track back to the road.
Working to ask Iris to keep her brain in her head.
Once the horses were well out of the way and mare was a bit more sensible I felt confident to ask her onto the track to the main road. This has a steep little step down onto it, which she handled cautiously but well, then it was narrow through the trees and ends in a brief root-entangled ascent onto a path between two houses. Iris powered up this then saw the manhole cover at the top and had a brief moment of foot-scrabbling uncertainty before I gave her a little squeeze forward and we were past it and on the way to the road. I was immensely proud of her for being brave and safe in the face of something she considered entirely perilous.
We marched back up the road, still very much on her toes ( the whole ride up to this point had felt a little bit like sitting on a time bomb on stilts ) but then as we passed the church she suddenly and for no clear reason relaxed.
For the rest of the ride she felt like the steadiest and most experienced trail horse you ever saw. I think once she can be like that consistently she will be a real pleasure to ride out and we will have many adventures together.
Life with my mare has progressed quite well although she has missed a bit of work due to a weekend off being a geek with the live roleplayers and one riding shires. When I'm home we ride most days, however and she's doing really well. I am finally learning how to be effective with the whole of my leg rather than having that weird noobish belief that if I need to have more of an effect I need to use my heel somehow. Now I can find that feeling through my whole calf and inside leg, which is making a really pleasant change in our work. Also we have been using the snaffle bit as she's had plenty of time to heal up after her dentistry now and I have been able to get tacked up and get on without feeling that she needs any other preparation. She's a little bit silly sometimes but generally she has been outstanding and shown very little difference in her response to the bridle and sidepull, which one would hope for as they are quite similar in action.
Today I had planned to ride her off the yard for the first time and as the weather was dry we figured the plan could be put into action.
We stepped out of the yard, with herecirm on foot, and marched off very briskly down the lane. Maybe a little more briskly than one would ask for if I'm honest, but Iris had a lot of anxiety in her and she just wanted to be moving, so we stomped off down the road. I had been worried that Cash would come galloping over as we passed the field, but happily he had some grass to eat so he didn't really mind us leaving.
A few hundred yards down the lane we stepped out onto a drive to let some cyclists pass ( not a problem ) then waited while some horses went by, which was a bit more tricky but we survived. Once they were out of sight we set off down the lane again. This part of the ride was quite joggy and tense on mare's part. At the bottom of the road we passed some scary rubble bags, then a big 4x4 with a horse trailer wanted to pass and Iris was not entirely alright with it so we went back past them and followed them up the road a bit, so she could understand that they were a timorous beast and no danger to her.
We got out onto the common, passing Small Pony on the way through, and went for the shortest possible loop, down one path and up the other with about a hundred yards of trail in between. As we reached the path back, the horses who had passed us earlier were heading the same way.
Iris watches horses approach.
This was a bit exciting, especially as the last horse onto the trail wanted to jump up and down a bit and be silly about things, so I took Iris up the other way and spent a few minutes just using lots of changes of bend and direction to get her paying a bit more attention before we made our way into the narrow track back to the road.
Working to ask Iris to keep her brain in her head.
Once the horses were well out of the way and mare was a bit more sensible I felt confident to ask her onto the track to the main road. This has a steep little step down onto it, which she handled cautiously but well, then it was narrow through the trees and ends in a brief root-entangled ascent onto a path between two houses. Iris powered up this then saw the manhole cover at the top and had a brief moment of foot-scrabbling uncertainty before I gave her a little squeeze forward and we were past it and on the way to the road. I was immensely proud of her for being brave and safe in the face of something she considered entirely perilous.
We marched back up the road, still very much on her toes ( the whole ride up to this point had felt a little bit like sitting on a time bomb on stilts ) but then as we passed the church she suddenly and for no clear reason relaxed.
For the rest of the ride she felt like the steadiest and most experienced trail horse you ever saw. I think once she can be like that consistently she will be a real pleasure to ride out and we will have many adventures together.