Ever realise quite how well behaved..

My horse is amazing, so calm, I had the Red arrows fly over very low, with different coloured smoke coming out the back of the planes while I was having a jumping lesson, my horse didn’t bat a eyelid, even though all the other horses were going crazy. The only time he gets strong is XC, he loves it and charges at anything you point him at, it scares his mum though.
 
My Red is pretty safe and honest - she took me to my first dressage comp, about 15 months after I bought her. I was a bag of nerves but she was a total pro and it was like she was saying she had my back, I just had to remember the test and she’d do the rest. She can look on hacks and be a bit jumpy but one day I’d had to get off to open a gate, I remounted off a wall and she stood rock solid as I swung my leg as a Hercules flew over (v low). Having ridden a horse that just didn’t care what happened to me (or to her on occasion) a horse that looks after you is just priceless.
 
J&S said:
Years ago i used to have the ride on a beautiful Welsh/Arab mare, she was a happy and talented jumper and brilliant on the forest. One day I was riding over to the Buck Hounds Show with a younger girl on her gelding who was really playing about, sideways, up and down, all over the place. My mare went quietly beside him. "Oh, she is very quiet, isn't she" the girl said. "No," I replied, "she is just good mannered!".
Click to expand...
Well said.The same thing is said of horses that lead nicely and have good ground manners.They are just,apparently,dopes on a rope.
 
My worlds best horse
Loads himself, chuck the rope over his neck and up he goes.
Turns out with anything and is always the perfect gentleman. How delightful it is not to upset anyone with a field menace
Stands like a poppet for the farrier
Jumps so honestly. If I set him up wrong (which I very often do!!) then he will give it a go anyway and sort himself out.
Makes me look like I can ride. That horse can run barrels like the best of them, rides a lovely dressage test and jumps what he is asked to jump. We win things but not because I am any good, but because he is just so good at his job and looks after me so well that he makes it easy (we aren't pot hunters I might add, we certainly don't always win and last year was our first season together)
 
annagain said:
You'd know if you ever rode M! His bucks rise approximately 8" off the ground. He only ever does them whilst galloping uphill and only when he's very excited and bouncy. All they do is make you bounce a bit in the saddle. As I said nobody's ever fallen off him in the 18 years we've had him. It's just his way of going "yeehah!".
Click to expand...
He sounds like my horse! When I saw him do it with my daughter I was horrified but actually when your on board it genuinely isn’t at all nasty and easy to stay on.
I’ve very much been on the receiving end of get off me bucks, not at all fun :(

I realised yesterday what a saint my loan horse is when some complete idiot mothers were stood chatting outside the infant school I was riding past, paying no attention to their little brats jumping and shouting at my horse. We then got round the corner and to my horror a small girl chased us screaming, she got well within a kick to the head distance *shudder
My horse flinched slightly but carried on, and he is a lasher outer! Not at people but if something scares him and he’s tied up he kicks out.
 
My little cob schooled beautifully with his rider today in the face of a tractor unloading haylage bales from a low-loader on one side and two horses having a total hooley in the paddock on the other side of the school. At the end the other horses were caught to come in and I lead my cob in front as I knew he would go past the tractor and trailer without issue and not object if something else ran up the back of him. All was fine until he suddenly planted almost causing a pile-up behind- he had just caught sight of someone at the rear carrying an armful of hay and wasn't about to take his eye off a possible dinner! So, generally sound, safe and sane but totally food obsessed - he is a cob after all!
 
annagain said:
You'd know if you ever rode M! His bucks rise approximately 8" off the ground. He only ever does them whilst galloping uphill and only when he's very excited and bouncy. All they do is make you bounce a bit in the saddle. As I said nobody's ever fallen off him in the 18 years we've had him. It's just his way of going "yeehah!".
Click to expand...

I went a riding holiday when I was a teenager, and rode a lovely grey called Sabre who did exactly that! It was my first time galloping, and I just thought that was what a gallop felt like, until the ride leader told me once we'd pulled up.

In contrast, I had a cob on loan with what I later realised was a badly-fitting Aussie stock saddle. (I was young and ignorant, and shouldn't have been solely responsible for a horse.) The first time we hacked, she put up with it until we had to climb over a bank, at which point she wanted me OFF. And off I went.
 
Really lovely to hear that you have such a nice and well mannered horse, and that you appreciate it! I know exactly what you mean. Every day I feel thankful to have my lovely, willing yet calm, bombproof and easy girl:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top