Various Horse Things

I did quite a bit of riding the last couple of weeks. I had two great lessons and several nice rides on Mya. I hope to continue the trend and get a lot of riding in this week as well. I'll just do a summery of each of my rides. Pictures included of course!

Lesson 1:
      Like I've said before for my lessons I ride an Arabian mare named Night. I think she's Anglo Arabian or something like that. But I really like riding her. She is a sensitive and quick horse which I like. Night is also very sweet. In my lesson my instructor had me on a lunge line so we could focus on my balance and posture. We practiced two-point quite a bit. I really needed that. Doing it over poles was fun. I'm learning to find my balance, and then I can start jumping. (yay!) We also did some no stirrup work at the trot. That is always a good workout. Its always interesting trying to find your balance when you first start riding without stirrups. Especially when you're doing a small circle on a lunge line. But I think we figured it out and did pretty good. Though I was glad to pick up my stirrups again. All together it was I great lesson. I think I learned a lot. :)

 

 Lesson 2:
     For my second lesson a week later to did a similar type thing. This time though we focussed more on two point and perfecting it. We also did a lot of pole work. Night was a great horse that day. She was very responsive and laid back. I think she liked doing pole work just as much as I did. I felt like I learned a ton at this lesson and really improved.

Riding Mya:
     Then over two or three days I had several great rides on Mya. Mya acted relaxed and responsive which I really liked. Sometimes she can be a rather crazy horse to ride. One of the neat things we figured out how to do was a really nice sitting trot. That was the best sitting trot I have ever done on her. You could actually sit it!

 Coming Up:
     One week from today is a horse show that I'm doing. I am riding Night in the show and we will be doing 3 or 4 english classes. This is actually the first english horse show that I will ever have done. I am really looking forward to it! Its just a small schooling show at the barn where I take lessons. I think it will be a great experience though. I hope to be able to take Mya to some local shows later this summer and I'd love to able to take her to this same schooling show in the Fall. The barn holds it twice a year. I guess we'll just have to see how this one goes first. But I'm excited about it!

Farrier

    
     I had the neatest opportunity yesterday. I was able to ride around and shadow my farrier on his rounds. It was a great experience and I learned a ton. The first place we went didn't have a horse. Nope, it was a donkey. I confess I didn't know farriers trimmed donkey's hooves. But apparently they do! The donkey was the one that gave us the most trouble that day. I had to hold it while the farrier worked on its feet. It was quite a rascal. The second stop we made was at a small farm that had one horse. The horse was a sweet chestnut, quarter horse mare. The funny thing about this stop was that the horse lived with a herd of sheep. (and a few cows) The sheep were the strangest things. And they were very loud. They made these weird noises that just made you want to laugh. But there was one baby lamb that was really cute. I wanted to pet it but it kept running away. After that we went to a small stable that had three horses. The first was an older quarter horse. Then they had a paso fino and an arabian. The arabian was a gorgeous horse. Here the farrier taught be how to age horses by looking at their teeth. I've always wanted to learn this but had never been able to figure out how. But now I could tell you whether a horse is under 5, under 10 over 10, or over 20. Pretty cool! After that stop we headed over to a place that had a couple of paint horses. We only trimmed one of them. The interesting thing about thing horse is that it had foundered. I was able to see the difference between a horse that had foundered and a horse that hadn't. Like I said I learned a ton! But the horses at that place were both really pretty.

 That was our last stop for clients. Then we headed back to the farriers house, and this is the neatest bit, he let me work on one of his horses. Yes, he actually taught me how to shoe a horse! I nailed a shoe on and everything. (with a lot of help and guidance of course) It was a super cool thing to be able to do. Random fact, but do you want to guess how old this horse is? This is the horse I worked on and his name is Ed.

 

He is 38 years old. Yes, you read that correctly! Thirty-eight! Crazy, I know. He is just a really well taken care of horse and he is just naturally healthy. Still that is the oldest horse I have ever seen. His pasture buddy is also pretty old coming in at 35.

But anyway, I really enjoyed my day hanging out with the farrier. I learned so much. I think everyone should do it!