I haven’t been motivated here to ride. Too cold and now too snowy. Sigh. Bring on spring! I’m looking at an online dressage show for the end of January, and thinking, um, probably not. It’s been so crappy out that I haven’t ridden much. I will likely wait till the next one in March. Though I may squeak in a trail competition. I’ll have to see how wet the trails are at the end of the month.
I’ve had a couple of okay rides. New trainer is doing a lot more dressage which is fantastic and hard!! learning so much, sitting tall has a whole new meaning!
We practiced a ton of shoulder in and shoulder fore and i was exhausted by the end.
Jump lesson was quite fun, we did a course that’s a bit more technical but small jumps (i much more prefer because those stops at big jumps is really wrecking me). Weather here has been very pleasant like cupid said, a bit cold (for us) but nothing crazy. We still can wear a long sleeve shirt to ride without jacket.
Huge news from me, we are moving to Portland! I’ve told Greys, TC and Bitsa. Bitsa is there so we’ve been chatting about barns of course. I’m excited about new chapter in life (moving because DH’s job), but leaving my roots (grew up here, some family here) is not easy. Hopefully post covid, my job will allow me to fly back periodically!
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Wahoo, at chrono cyber connections.
Sitting up tall. Make sure you don’t compromise by changing your spine. You shouldn’t arch your back.
Instead lift up through your stomach and shoulders with eyes looking at the horizon,at the same time that you stretch down with legs, calves and heels. At the same time staying fluid so as you don’t 'ground the horse. Easy huh! Then of course the horse moves!
Faye- what exciting news! Jingles for traveling safety and for finding a great barn.
I finally had a day off so of course I scheduled Pony time. I made myself get braver and we did some trot work, however Pony was NQR to the right. To the left, she was Perfect Hunter Eq pony. Once we realized she was off and not just being snarky going our stiffer direction, we had cuddles and grooming time.
One of the new mares, the chromed out chestnut who’s name I keep forgetting, gives Pony a run for her money. She makes way worse ugly faces, to which Pony actually ignores. Go figure.
In other fun news, Fab got us a new schoolie coming on Sunday or Monday. Standardbred former Amish buggy horse. 16.2 and of course I forget his name, too. Hoping to be brave and ride him, once I find a step ladder. I’ve never sat on a Standardbred. Anyone have any advice?
No advice just my experiences.
All horses should have the benefit of the rider mounting from a mounting block. It is better for both the horse’s back and the spine of the saddle.
Over here standardbred horses are racehorses that pull a driver behind them. They are either Trotters or Pacers. Trotters trot normally like a TB, warmblood or Arab with the diagonals pairs going forward at the same time. Pacers pace with the 2 legs on one side going forward at the same time like a camel.
Both are taught to trot or pace flat out without cantering.
So if you get them before retraining it takes longer than getting a normal horse as you have to teach the trot and it is now okay to canter.
The pace is supposed to be very comfortable and good for trail rides, however all the ex Pacers in the trail ride herd of over 50 where I was a trail ride guide, no longer paced. However if it took 250 strides for a tb to gallop up a hill. It took the Pacers 500 strides, even if they were taller. Their stride is different somehow.
They are generally quiet horses.
The employer told me to teach the cob to drive to take customers on hay rides. I downright refused. I had no experience with driving, so I was not going to teach a horse to drive. Why? When we had numerous Pacers in the herd.
He then went to do it himself. Beauty took off and got away from him and slammed the GORGEOUS toboggan into a gate post absolutely killing it. After that I used the Pacers for the hay rides with no problems.
It was an ex pacer I was given to ride when the rider reached the latest stages of pregnancy when I was at Willow Park.
They thought it would be better for me to ride in the lessons than her until after the baby. I was told he jumped into canter. He was being used for dressage and was trotting instead of pacing.
I can tell which lead a horse is going to canter on before it canters.
I SWEAR I did nothing more than put my outside leg on to bring him in from drifting on the circle. The very first thing I felt was my back go parallel to the ground. He leapt into the air and would easily have jumped over a 44 gallon drum.
I immediately halted as I felt that the horse was telling the instructor that I had done something awful to him. No we told you he jumped into canter. Have you never seen him do it?
No I was cleaning paddocks and yards, rugging and unrugging, feeding, instructing and riding 8 horses a day. I had never seen that happen and that is not what I think of when I am told a horse jumps into canter. This was a humongous leap.
I was told to ignore it and continue with what we were doing before he leapt and he did it 5 times in the first lesson, 3 times in the 2nd leason and once un the 3rd lesson and then never again for me. Oh and he never did it when I actually asked for canter.
But I don’t think that had anything to do with breed.
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Faye, how exciting about your big move. I know making that big of a change is not easy, but there’s usually a bit of adventure about it that can be exciting. I hope all goes smoothly! And it’s great BITSA is there and can offer you some good advice!
lucky, standardbreds certainly can be nice horses. They’re lower key than TBs on the most part. I’ve only ridden one. Funny story, I was taking lessons when I was in MI. My trainer told me to go get the black horse out of a certain paddock. So I did and tacked him up for my lesson. This was the first time we were allowed to use this horse in a lesson. My trainer didn’t know anything about him, either. So he was nice, but I COULD.NOT.GET.HIM.TO.CANTER. It took forever. I was riding in the indoor arena. I finally got him to canter, and felt sort of proud of myself. So the next time I show up at the barn, my trainer told me that the we had accidently taken the wrong horse that previous day. The horse was a STB race horse. Big fat oops. Haa! So I rode a race-fit STB and poor thing probably was wondering what the heck I was doing up there, yet he was willing enough to eventually give it a shot. I hope I didn’t screw up his racing career, haha.
Suzie, funny story. 
Well, simply to motivate myself to ride, I signed up for the January virtual trail challenge. So now I HAVE to ride. Hopefully I’ll get a few nice days in a row so I can film.
@SuzieQNutter
I am laughing both at your story and also your comments. You are SO RIGHT!! Do all that (keeping body tall, without arching back, but ah ha, my legs starts to creep up, okay, nailed it, then horse moves… LOL!) Riding is so hard.
@luckymaverick
Thank you! does your barn have bigger mountain blocks? We have tiny ones and huge ones, and i found that mounting regular horses is fine, but with the huge ones, mounting the ponies is actually quite funny.
@ParadoxFarm. That is super funny!!! Thankfully you can laugh about it now. Why doesn’t he canter if that’s probably what they are used to?? you are 100% right about the sense of adventure to it. I’m ready for a different stage in life. I love my friends and family, but i’m also very introverted, plus work will bring me back periodically.
That’s just it they are not used to canter, they are pulled up if they canter or gallop in a race.
They have to trot or pace to win.
Pacing is bred into them but they also can be put into a contraption around each pair of legs on each side so they have to pace.
It’s been a while since I posted here, but I’ve been trying to pop in to read and keep up with everyone as best I can. The story about riding the Standardbred is a hoot. What a testament to the disposition of those horses (or at least that one!) though that he was game to try what had to have been very bewildering to him, LOL! I knew someone long ago that evented a Standardbred. He always struggled a bit with canter work in dressage, but he did well enough and got around cross-country and stadium well! He was a very chill horse as I recall.
Speaking of chill horses, Milton is so weird. He loves cold, windy weather. Today was 48 degrees with pretty steady winds that were gusting near 20mph. He acted like it was a mild spring day. He was snoozing in the pasture when I went to get him and had to drag himself up off the ground. He stood like a statue in the cross-ties while I groomed and tacked, went out into the blustery outdoors and got on and he never put a toe wrong or flicked an ear. Was nice and forward(ish) but despite the wind blowing so hard a few times I thought I was going to get blown clean off the horse (LOL) he just acted like it was any old day.
Of course, come to find out he escaped the pasture some time late last night or early this morning and had a large time rearranging the neighboring barn and finding all the green grass patches in the field by the covered arena, where he was apprehended by the BO this morning. So, his shenanigans had probably worn him out! Maybe he needs to do that every night! I’m sure the neighboring BO doesn’t agree, LOL!
I hope everyone is healthy and happy! It’s hard to believe January is slipping away. I’m glad…get me back to spring!
So I was being facetious about the step ladder- of course we have and use mounting blocks 
None are super tall, however at one of my old barns, we would stand the block on its side so it was taller- I had to do it for all over 15.3.
Side note- his name is Kardinal. Can’t wait to at least meet him on Thursday.
Jingles for Buster the puppy. He goes in for “snipping” Thursday. No reason to think it won’t go well, but you know I’m the anxious type.
PF- what a great story. Being race fit, did he feel more up? Kardinal is just a buggy horse, no racing that I know of. Wouldn’t it be something if my big show for the year is on him instead of Pony?
Ooh Lucky something to work towards or can you ride both in the Show?
We measured our 3 the other day. Dodge is just over 15.3h, Stars is just over 16h and Sim is just over 16.1h. That was with a tape measure, not a proper measuring stick.
Faye, yeah, it was pretty funny. That STB, though, was a trotting race horse!
RhthymNCruise, that’s good Milton was a good boy. But you’re probably right, he probably was just happily tired! That’s always a good thing.
lucky, he was pretty fit. I still feel bad about riding him, what, 30 years ago? Haha. And jingles for Buster. And give him a treat when he’s feeling up to it from me. 
Suzie, those are good sizes. Mine are across the board. 15.3 for Chico, 16.2 for Jazz, 16.2 for Dante and though he was listed as 16.3, we haven’t sticked him, but my trainer thinks he’s over 17 hh. Honestly, I like the feel of Tay the best. But he’s also pretty big bodies, which is nice.
I managed to ride yesterday. It’s been a few weeks. Tay was “up” for him, and actually spooked twice, but they were not bad. Didn’t help that DH was working with power tools in the barn next to the arena when I was riding – and it was windy. But I was glad to fit a ride in. The weather was mid-40º, wo not terrible. I hope to ride again this afternoon since it will be similar weather…and so far the sun is shining.
Hope you all are fitting in rides.
Susie- I don’t have the bank account to show two horses, so I’ll ride whoever Fab says. Just day dreaming. Pony’s not getting any younger and I need to branch out.
PF- will do.
Aaagh Lucky, I forgot about the cost and completely understand.
I used to compete every weekend with Pony Club and it was very cheap $6 for a class. Every class was full or so many that they had to divide it into 2 or 3 classes for each level and I am talking about One Day Events.
The last time I looked I was so surprised at the cost and it was for Dressage only. Membership has been decimated.
I would rather spend my money on a lesson and get to ride for an hour and hopefully learn something, have the horse going better and get homework to work on. Than spend it on a comp, have 4 minutes in the ring x 2 if you are lucky.
Hello everyone! I’ve been lurking and reading on this forum, and especially this thread, quite a bit, and I finally bit the bullet and decided to register. I hope I can join y’all—I’m not a re-rider but I’m a brand spanking new adult beginner. It looks like you have a great community on this thread (and the forum in general) so I hope you don’t mind my crashing the party
So I’m in my mid-30s and other than my childhood obsession with horses (read all the Saddle Club and Thoroughbred and every other horse-related books of course!) I never had the chance to ride. Pandemic happened, suddenly I’m working from home, and decided, why not? Plus I have a friend who has been riding for years and I’ve drooled over all her amazing riding posts for far too long now without riding myself!
I started at one stable that had beautiful facilities but didn’t feel the instructor gave me enough guidance about how to fix things I was clearly doing wrong (she had me trotting in the 1st lesson but my posting was a mess!). I’m a teacher IRL and a dance teacher to adults as well, so I love teachers who are super technical. I moved to a large lesson place (in the SF Bay Area), found a wonderful instructor there who was new to the program (it is a gigantic program with a LOT of horses) but she decided to take a break due to COVID concerns (very valid) and I found it was too hard communicating with the stable, especially for finding lesson slots. Everyone else seems to have the same idea as myself so they were busy.
After lots of e-mailing and asking around, I found myself at a wonderful smaller dressage-only facility and went from riding once a week to three times a week (four during the holidays!). I love them, I love the technicality and precision, and most of all, I love how well-cared for their horses are and their super strong adherence to rider and horse safety.
This past weekend I decided to go back to the first place (H/J) and take a beginner adult group lesson. OMG. 60 minutes of group riding, where we’re in a trot for 45 min, is SUCH a huge difference from my 30 minute dressage lessons of working on some trotting and posting, but mostly lots of seat and position. I can barely walk today. But I also found that my regular riding at the dressage place has helped me a ton (even though I feel like I have barely progressed there), and I was comfortably posting the entire time in my group lesson. My instructor didn’t realize I had spent the last 2 months doing flat work only (even at the big lesson place my instructor had me in a dressage saddle as we worked on posting), so she had me post, go into 2 point (never done this before), trot over 2 poles (never done this before), and sit the trot (never done this before), and…it was actually pretty good! And then I went to my dressage private after and we did a very low key lesson on box turns because I was so tired and sore
Anyway, sorry for the novel! But I am definitely obsessed and looking forward to doing some more H/J groups, as well as keeping up my dressage privates!
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Welcome, AerialEQ! (Don’t be offended if she shorten your handle to AEQ or something!) Glad you found this group and jumped in. Sounds like you’ve found a good riding home or two. Dressage and H/J, especially at the beginning, will feel very, very different. Don’t feel bad if you decide to stick with one for a little while, then add the other. If you have no trouble switching from one discipline to the other, more power to you!
Again, welcome.
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@ParadoxFarm - Thank you for the welcome! AEQ is definitely fine to make things easier for everyone Most likely I’ll be spending the bulk of my time at the dressage place. I really love them, I love the horses, and the quality of instruction. They also really want you to ride as much as possible (since better riders mean better riding for their horses) and they are one of the few places here that seem far more financially feasible to ride often! The H/J place I’ll probably try to do a couple times a month, since more riding time is always great! It was really fun being in a group since all my other lessons are privates. Also, wow, my stirrups felt so short! What a feeling! I will say that I hit a tiny slump at my dressage place because it felt like I was improving at a glacial rate, so being able to do more at the H/J place was a nice confidence booster!
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Sounds good, AEQ! I think you’ll find that with dressage, it’s a little more exact, so they may be pickier, which means you may feel it’s slower – but I think you’ll be learning a ton! Enjoy it. I do both as well. Dressage on my own, and jumpers with lessons. I mostly ride alone, though. My trainer is often at shows, so I’m working here at home. 
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Welcome Welcome Welcone AEQ.
Bring a Dance teacher will help you a lot as you should have great core muscles, however as you have found when riding you use a lot of muscles you don’t use elsewhere.
To minimise the pain start doing a pilates routine on a foam mat at least 1 cm thick in front of a DVD, daily.
Then tell me to start doing it as well as I have been so slack!
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Okay, guys, I’m upset about something and need to vent! I hope you’ll indulge me. A lot of you remember my horse, Katie. Well, I rehomed her a few years ago because she didn’t enjoy jumping and she was 18, so I found her a home where she wouldn’t be jumped and just would be doing easy trail-riding, etc. Seemed like a perfect match. The woman said all the right things when she visited. She was an older woman, but fit to ride. She did well enough on the trial ride. She said that she keeps her horses forever, blah, blah, blah. I had extensive emails with her prior to her coming and explained she is not being sold as a jumper, she could do dressage (and was good at it!) and flat work etc. So for the first year or so the woman sent updates and pictures of them doing some competitive trail rides. I was happy to see her. Well, I hadn’t hear much lately. She sent an email Christmas greeting this year with another horse on it. It made me curious, so I emailed her back asking how Katie was doing. I heard nothing back.
Last night, I got an email saying she was sending Katie back to her previous owner (whom she learned of from me, with previous owner’s permission). She said she was retiring. I emailed her back asking if something was wrong, but she hasn’t responded yet. In the meantime, this morning I got an email from the previous owner (whom I got her from) saying that Katie was back at her farm as of this morning, and thanking me for taking such good care of her.
I immediately got back to her asking if Katie was okay, and that I was happy she was “home”. I got a long email back saying, that basically the other woman pulled Katie out of the field after having the winter off, hopped on bareback and jumped her. Katie fell and messed up her back during the fall, got up and bucked the woman off. Woman broke ribs and punctured a lung. She also now doesn’t tie because of something the woman did when tying her and she freaked out and injured her poll and neck, etc. Chiro identified back, neck and poll injuries and stated she can no longer be ridden. And to top it off, this morning when she got off the trailer, she is said to look terrible. Woman also said she had behavioral issues. She was a very sweet horse – other than her being a mare when around the boys. She was an easy horse to handle, she was a fat, easy keeper.
I’m heartbroken. I loved this mare. It was very hard for me to rehome her, and now I’m kicking myself in the arse that I didn’t just keep her. Had I realized I enjoy dressage, I could have done that with her instead of jumping. Hindsight. 
Sigh.
Okay, if you read this all, thank you. I just needed to vent. I’m happy, though, that now I know she’ll be taken care of. And I’ll get updates.
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