Recent content by Skib

After a friend died in a hacking accident, I went for a walk only lesson in the school. Then a walk only hack. I gradually found that sitting on a safe dull cob for an hour gave me more pleasure than fear, so I began normal riding again. But my first try at mounting was not good. I was shaking...

Sadly we know people who were killed when riding. But none of them was killed riding on a road.

I spectated a clinic by Tik Maynard. Working with a group of riders meant that a reluctant horse could gradually be encouraged to follow others into or across the water.

I ride in Sprenger safety stirrups.They look just like normal stirrups. I have never lost a stirrup and in two falls my foot did not catch. But you have to have the right size stirrups for the boots you are wearing

I ride in London BUT my experience of police mounted is from the other side, crowd control. I was in early pregnancy when I was forced back into an exiting football crowd (England versus Germany) by a mounted poiceman. At uni I was on peace marches similarly chaperonned and most recently OH...

I have a strong plastic box bought in my early enthusiastic days of riding. But during Covid lockdown when I didnt use it for ages, it became infested with moth. I had to wash everything, box included. Warning to me not to leave brushes with horse hair in them. Me too. Barely used.

My personal history of being accompanied by RS girls on unruly horses, means that my accident rate for hacking with others greatly exceeds that when I hack alone. I feel very safe hacking alone. However, the skills required for hacking solo seem to me a bit different from riding with someone...

Very happy for you, My all time fav. hack was also a 15.2 Connemara

I am a sharer and have been for years. I pay to ride someone else's horse. There is a big difference between that and a trainer, who is paid by the owner to train their horse. But there is something else too. A horse learns from anyone who rides it and is surely changed by the riders. Thus...

I dont have the figure for tights, I have Mark Todd breeches in two different sizes, which are now over 20 years old and still fine. My best ones are Pikeur.

My favourite saddle is a Podhajski training saddle. Expensive. They may be still made by Ideal. This is the saddle with which I learned to ride and in which I hacked my old share for many years. I wanted to buy one for my present share but was told that other riders would be insecure on such...

Worth asking what exercise the horse has had that day and the prevous day. I rode at a RS yard where they also dealt in horses. The horses being viewed were taken out by staff for a fast hack before viewing, to reduce their energy levels when potential purchasers tried them.

I ride fit horses, but they are not privately owned. I am used to riding/sharing horses who work 6 days a week and do 3 or 4 hours hacking every working day, each ride including 3 canters. Two of the hard worked RS horses I rode lived to be over twenty, so we were not working them to death...

This is true compared with how horses were looked after before 1914 and during the FWW. Miller wrote convincingly about the polo ponies he had over-wintered, that the ones turned out (the least valuable) were in far better nick the following spring than those he had kept boxed. He was persuading...

Shiny surfaces squeak. This may not help you but I take my own leathers with me when I ride (plus my safety stirrups ) and put them on any horse I hack. My leathers have never squeaked. But they are not shiny. I clean my leathers with Effax Leder Balsam. The leathers are Amerigo and very soft. I...