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[kirin76]

Lessons went pretty well today. Not like totally fantastic but pretty darn good considering one of the horses was being a dork and cantered three strides during the lesson. (Thank The Lord for awesomely calm horse handlers!) It was gorgeous outside but because of said dork of a horse, we had to go back inside so the boy riding him could safely trot

Comments

[bassnote]

It would be nice (fer da horses) if you could open field excersize them once a day.

Take them out and let 'em lope allllll oooover for fifteen to twenty minutes. Shake out their kinks, and lets them romp for a bit. Then come lesson time, they are warmed up, de-bugged, and a bit more mellow.

And if they could do it four or five abreast! They would love it as their social nature gets to kick in too. We used to do this with some friends horses before we put the little kids on them - take them out and let them RUN. Kick one us to a dead run and the others would go for the race. They got used to it and sort of expected it after a while. Got to where we didn't have to kick them up.

You could feel their tense excitement as we saddled and mounted up, they would "quick walk" through the yard and once we were out the gate? Katy bar the door and you better have your seat belt on, because they would go from a walk to a dead sprint in two steps. Snap your head back. Fun stuff.

[kirin76]

these horses do all live outside in large fields almost 24/7 and many of them get schooled several times a week. Lots of them do get free-lounged (chased around) in the arena at the beginning of the day. The one who was acting up though is usually so calm that he hasn't been being needing it like the other ones. The other instructor did hop on him before my lesson and ran him around. He was just having a very "up" day. She did say she would have one of us ride him next weekend before the lessons.