Do other people like riding your horse?

Mine is lovely to ride for anyone! he has to be as he has to have a judge on him.

When I'm riding other peoples horses I very rarely actualy like riding the horse, its amazing how many peoples horses are stiff as a board or strong or nappy or dead to the leg or have an annoying habit of trying to squash your leg against a wall, or need carrying instead of carrying themselves
 
We have 3, Nearly nobody rides them except our trainer really and only when we are on hols. Having said that I know my Welsh cob is not really her favourite (she is rather lazy and prefers not to be worked at all) but she does really like the other two.
 
Don't know. She's quite cheeky but she know's when she should be gentle with the rider. Once, a mother and her 4 year came to me to ride my mare. The little girl when first and I watched with pride as my mare took her over her first jump! The girl was desperate to stay on and gave her a big kiss! Then the mother went on and within 15 minutes, she had been bucked off. I guess my mare is an acquired taste to those she takes a dislike to! :)
 
Most do like riding him, though he tends to be a bit insane at this time of the year! He bucked more than one adult off, but looks after the kids as though they were made of glass. He is a quirky, nutty, seaside donkey with a heart of a lion.

And I wouldnt change him for the world...
 
Most people like riding my mare. She's a bit like marmite though, you either love her or hate her there's no in between with her. She's naturally very unbalanced and requires a lot of hand and leg work from the rider to get her going and once warmed up she settles into her work. As part of my livery she is used in lessons in the riding school. The majority of the girls who ride her adore her but there are a small few that hate having to ride her!
 
FfionWinnie said:
Everyone loves riding my horses (no one has ridden current one tho, except my instructor who never rode any previous ones and declared the new one to be "bloody terrible" lol - schooling issues not long term awfulness!)

I hate riding other peoples horses. Except Ferg. I love Ferg.
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You've ridden Ferg? Turns pea green . . .

P
 
I haven't ridden F either!

The SP, one instructor had a sit on him once or twice, and said that he felt my style of dealing with him was better than his. Other instructors have cautioned me not to put other riders on him, as he's such a suspicious sort. I don't think it would be terribly fair to him at this point to stick another rider on, unless we had a very specific strategy in mind.

The Ballerina Mare, she's lovely to ride. I've been her only rider since I got her, but I'd happily let a rider that I respected have a shot, and I'm sure they'd like her too. She's a happy, straight-forward sort of horse. :)
 
Nobody has ridden my ISH except for me and my mum for at least the last 4 years. He is a quirky sort and more a case of he might not like the rider as much as whether they would like him.

My Appy is not everyone's cup of tea, I have let a few good friends hack him out with me and they have all really enjoyed him but wouldn't let anyone else hunt him as he can be a bit hot-headed and has a mean buck in him when he wants to! ;)
 
no :( they love him on the ground and hes very safe to ride, in that i could put a novice on him and trust him to donkey them round beautifully. that said, despite him being scopey enough to be able to jump a reasonable height, hes fairly dead to the leg and can totally switch off. you need to ask him, not tell, and if he doesnt like the way you are riding/doesnt think you are being fair, he wont hesitate to bury you with a nice rodeo buck!

big goal now is to find an instructor to help me deal with him and learn to ride him better!
 
Well...no.
I got my last boy (now retired) as an 11yo girl, with him a 20yo ex pacer who'd been left in a paddock totally neglected for 15 years. I mean neglected, rescued from death's door in the middle of winter by a friend/instructor type person who didn't have anywhere for him so passed him on to me. Looking back now it seems insane to give an 11 year old kid 500+kgs of unknown quantity ex-racehorse, but it worked out beautifully, and we got on like a house on fire. I adored him, and I really GOT him, even though he was stubborn, cheeky, naughty, quick, super intelligent, excitable, EXTREMELY fast, bucked occasionally, had an iron mouth at times, and was generally a dreaded brat - I never really noticed these things as I understood him and could instinctively head any problems off before they happened. He was the most fun horse I've ever ridden. EVER.

But! Literally every single other person who rode him hated him! None of my friends ever wanted to ride him. They thought he was unmanageable - even three professional riders (and one whose horse that she adores is an absolute psychopath of an Arab mare) but to me, he was the safest and most comfortable horse I could imagine. It always made me sad that they never saw his confidence, sense of humour, level-headedness, brilliant to hack out, never spooked (except at kangaroos - he was terrified of kangaroos) great jump, the most comfortable canter you could hope for (you didn't even MOVE in the saddle, ahh), all they got when they rode him was a naughty horse. What I got was a safe but sassy friend. I wanted people to understand how great my horse was, but all my friends just thought I was nuts :(
 
Mine seems to be marmite, they either love him or hate him. He is difficult to ride, naps like hell and argues about absolutely everything, he doesn't pick his feet up unless you get after him and nag nag nag. He can't school to save his life (to be fair he's predominately been a hacking / driving horse) and he flatly refuses to go out alone. Oh and the 1st ride on him is always make or break - he's thrown potential sharers off into ditches and is quite the master at broncking. (none of this is pain related, everything and more has been checked, changed and dealt with)

BUT if you get through the first ride and he accepts you then he is absolutely brilliant. Doesn't spook at anything, excellent in heavy traffic, open fields. Goes first, last or in the middle. Never races the other horses and has perfect breaks. If you figure out which buttons are where then he steps out nicely and picks his feet up and you can have a fun ride.

So far I've only found 3 people who enjoyed him and countless who don't!
 
These actually make brilliant reading and it has amazed me at how much we, as owners put up with. Funnily enough half of these animals (including my own) sound like absolute psychopaths, yet we love them and cope with whatever they throw at us. It has also made me wonder, would we put up with these behaviours/quirks from someone else's horse or would it make you think twice about sitting on another animal that did the same as yours did?

Very interesting reading, thanks OP for throwing this thread up :)
 
Haha, yes thanks OP because I now feel less awful for being so possessive over my mare! Only my best horsey friend has ridden her in the 11 years I've had millie, and these days she only takes her for a hack so that I can ride my green cob out with some company! !

I don't care whether anyone else would like riding millie or not. I suspect she looks easier than she is, so might not be wildly popular. But what matters to me is that I LOVE riding her more than any other horse I've ever sat on.
 
Tern said:
Well.. my Clydesdale cross TB Derek has his own little fan club.. in BD and with our friends..
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Count me in the Derek fan club, been totally charmed by his temperament at AM dressage demos several times! Hope he's settling in with you :D
 
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