Heya and question:

[meercat]

Hi, I'm a novice rider and non contracted (or something...) Jr. stable hand, as well as dog trainer and sitter. I have been riding once or twice a month for almost two years, on top of studying, and love it with a passion! At the moment, I am learning to jump not progressing very fast as my usual is brilliant in all aspects but she doesn't do more than poles at a trot no matter who is riding her! I'm really looking forward to learning more about horses, stable maintenance and dogs on here, and will take the opportunity to ask: what do you do when your horse doesn't want to move (due to laziness opposed to anything else!) as the horse I often ride is stubborn as me, and it takes a lot of work to get her going to start with, though after that she flies!

 

[rallan15]

If I'm ever on a lazy horse here's what I do to get them going forward more -
When you're warming up you really want to get them going off the leg more, basically what you want to do is give them a tap with your legs if they don't go faster/walk on or whatever give them a wee tap on the shoulder with a crop - I don't mean a huge whack I just mean a small tap so they know to listen - I find after doing this a couple of times the horse magically stops being lazy and turns into quite a good mover! I'm not entirely sure if you're riding a riding school pony or if it's someone elses horse or yours because I quite often find that riding school horses and a lot less sensitive to your commands than if it's a privately owned horse so if it is a riding school horse this technique might not work very well.

 

[meercat]

thanks, it is a riding school pony but not one of the most used because of her size and friskiness, that is basically what we do, that and transitions, so it's nice to have some reassurance that other people do similar stuff to me!