I get the bad owner award for today...

AShetlandBitMeOnce

AShetlandBitMeOnce

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Third proper hack of the year, and another eventful one - albeit this was totally my fault, I made about every bad decision I could. If anyone else would like to make me feel better and share their sh1t owner moments, please do!!

So in the end of the woods I don't know so well as the ground is waaaay better, got to a fork in the path and I elected to go right at a crossroads rather than straight on. I realised once we had waded through a puddle the size of Greenland and gone through a weighted gate on a pretty steep bit of hill that we we now on something called windy ridge... LESS than ideal. It's a ridge that goes along the side of a valley with a sheer drop on the right (I am very much scared of heights) and it is NARROW. I am also sat on a biiiig 5yo who isn't fully 4x4 yet as it is and it's muddy, thankfully only lightly muddy but we couldn't turn around so just had to keep going.. the next 15 mins were squeaky bum at best! Then we got to another really heavily weighted gate on a steep incline which was impossible AND there was a herd of cows on the other side so off I hop, through gate, through cows and out the other side.

Thankfully Dex stands like a rock to let me back on, especially as climbing on gates is not my forte, que lots of treats, pats and praise. Next I can go along the edge of a field and back through the woods, or down a biiiiiig hill and through what could be a pretty deep arable field, so I chose the former, except the edge of the field is more sloped and slippier than I had anticipated, que more tense bum moments but we made it. Back to the woods and clear so I thought, Dex is bowling along super happy without a care in the world, and has done the whole hack to be fair to him, so I let him trot an he puts his head down and tanks off a fair bit - I realised this time and last time I hacked that I am severely lacking in breaks but I'm hoping he's just keen to be out again and it will die down before I have to bit up - but we make it mostly home and rather than go back across the common I go the other side of the hedge thinking it will be drier.. NOPE, sticky and veeeerry soft. So I get off and walk him to give him a hand, we are nearly home, then he spooks at a kamikaze pheasant and stands on the back of my heel, que MANY swears, and then he bowls down the hill home at a rate of knots, I just about keep up with him but have no purchase on the mud to do much about it, and home we get... 2.5 hours later!!

I feel like the worst owner in the world right now as I feel like I just took him from sh!t terrain to sh!t terrain but we made it.. and he seemed to enjoy it.
 
Not a sh1t owner! But a good hack for one who wants to gain her Explorers badge!
Accompanied by a pretty well rounded youngster who did everything he was asked (ok, brakes might need attention) and didn't park you in the mud at gates, didn't get antsy with cattle, coped with gradients and absolutely by accident trod on owner when stupid feathered fiend attacked him.
I'd take that as a successful hack 😎
 
Oh I do those hacks commonly, when I ride. Suppose if you aren't in 'real trouble' enough in your life, this solves that. Clearly you've done a good enough job with dumb-and adventure proofing your youngster. Well done!
 
You've nothing to feel bad about and it sounds like you've done a great job of bringing him on!
However, if it makes you feel better, I once turned the old boy down a bridle path with what I thought was a big puddle. He balked a bit, so I told him to crack on and not be a wuss and promptly discovered it was a) much deeper than I thought (past his knees/up to my feet in places) and b) about 200yds of the bridleway was flooded!
By this point we'd commited, so he carried on without further protests, but I got an 'I told you so' look 😆.
 
It sounds eventful but you completed it.

I will nominate myself for sh!t owner.
Sunday I had my non horse Mr FP take my old, sensible 24yr old pony out in hand to accompany me on my very newly backed 5 yr old Tal.
It started off fantastic and we were all feeling confident until we got closer to the road to cross over and there's a ton of runners doing a road race. It will be fine.
We continue and Til starts pulling, head up. Once we get across the road she'll calm says I.

We get across the road nearly all the way when Tal spins to look at the next wave of runners. Til is dragging Mr FP and I feel not very safe. I jump off, lead Tal deep into the woods.
Ponies calm and I go up a different route as there's a stump I can use to get back on. Get on, head back the way to the original path and turn right towards Til.
Tal wants to turn left the way we came. I said no. He reared. As soon as his hooves hit the ground he went up again. Mr FP has never seen a rear in person and said I started sliding but threw myself forward. He was dang near vertical so a very, high rear.

Mr FP came back, took hold of the reins and persuaded Tal to step forward. Once we'd gone 3 strides he let go and off we went.
No issues. As we go further up and where we'd cross the same road as the runners I made the decision to get off so there was no issues.
I swapped ponies as Til was still bouncing. Tal led like a lamb down the road and home for Mr FP. - turns out there were no more runners.
Til led lovely for me.

Not the hack I expected but we made it home. I should have known better as soon as I saw the runners and taken a different path.
 
Jenko109 said:
What a cracking youngster he is.
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My takeaway also. What a good sport! He has no idea it was a nightmare, bar the pheasant!

My one that comes to mind is the time I thought I had definitely missed the local christmas tractor run that was intersecting our usual hack route, but I definitely hadn't and Sadie watched 150+ tractors come rattling down the road with Christmas lights and inflatable Santas strapped on the front and all sorts. We were there for half an hour I think, but would have been almost an hour to go backwards. She was fine with it, I was MORTIFIED (and then very proud of her).
 
Isn't that just a normal hack?

Or is just it me who thinks that?







(in fairness, free range cows scare the sh!t out of me so will go to great lengths to avoid them, and Hermosa doesn't believe in working harder than she has to, so losing brakes and tanking off isn't generally a thing, but the rest of it sounds like a good day out)
 
I mean he enjoyed it and didn’t feel upset by it!!

I felt like a bad owner yesterday too. We had a nice day yesterday for a change so decided to make the most of it and take the moor road up to the top of the valley then back down via the bridleways.

All good to start apart from pony having a minor heart attack at a skip wagon. But I didn’t appreciate how much icier it would be only a little further up so the bridleway down the hill was a lot of ice dodging and obviously my caution made the baby barrel hot up and get a bit silly. Then we had to cross an enormous puddle which was all ice. Baby barrel was a bit alarmed but did cross it very sensibly and bravely although she didn’t really appreciate the noise of the ice breaking every step. All good in the end but my bum was definitely puckered as I do not like horses and ice one bit.
 
I find that it's hacks like that, which really build the relationship with your horse. You have to rely on each other and help each other out, you get to the end and realise they can cope with things you wouldn't have normally asked and that you had each others back. It's days like that which make questions on cross country courses and scary venues etc are a much smaller ask and if you do have an ask then you've got the value of knowing that you've got each others backs.
 
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SpeedyPony said:
You've nothing to feel bad about and it sounds like you've done a great job of bringing him on!
However, if it makes you feel better, I once turned the old boy down a bridle path with what I thought was a big puddle. He balked a bit, so I told him to crack on and not be a wuss and promptly discovered it was a) much deeper than I thought (past his knees/up to my feet in places) and b) about 200yds of the bridleway was flooded!
By this point we'd commited, so he carried on without further protests, but I got an 'I told you so' look 😆.
Click to expand...

This made me laugh, there are definitely times when you have to hold your hands up to them genuinely knowing best..

fidleyspromise said:
It sounds eventful but you completed it.

I will nominate myself for sh!t owner.
Sunday I had my non horse Mr FP take my old, sensible 24yr old pony out in hand to accompany me on my very newly backed 5 yr old Tal.
It started off fantastic and we were all feeling confident until we got closer to the road to cross over and there's a ton of runners doing a road race. It will be fine.
We continue and Til starts pulling, head up. Once we get across the road she'll calm says I.

We get across the road nearly all the way when Tal spins to look at the next wave of runners. Til is dragging Mr FP and I feel not very safe. I jump off, lead Tal deep into the woods.
Ponies calm and I go up a different route as there's a stump I can use to get back on. Get on, head back the way to the original path and turn right towards Til.
Tal wants to turn left the way we came. I said no. He reared. As soon as his hooves hit the ground he went up again. Mr FP has never seen a rear in person and said I started sliding but threw myself forward. He was dang near vertical so a very, high rear.

Mr FP came back, took hold of the reins and persuaded Tal to step forward. Once we'd gone 3 strides he let go and off we went.
No issues. As we go further up and where we'd cross the same road as the runners I made the decision to get off so there was no issues.
I swapped ponies as Til was still bouncing. Tal led like a lamb down the road and home for Mr FP. - turns out there were no more runners.
Til led lovely for me.

Not the hack I expected but we made it home. I should have known better as soon as I saw the runners and taken a different path.
Click to expand...

I did this with an endurance ride once, you all made it home in one piece - and sometimes that's all you can celebrate! 😂

smolmaus said:
My takeaway also. What a good sport! He has no idea it was a nightmare, bar the pheasant!

My one that comes to mind is the time I thought I had definitely missed the local christmas tractor run that was intersecting our usual hack route, but I definitely hadn't and Sadie watched 150+ tractors come rattling down the road with Christmas lights and inflatable Santas strapped on the front and all sorts. We were there for half an hour I think, but would have been almost an hour to go backwards. She was fine with it, I was MORTIFIED (and then very proud of her).
Click to expand...

Dex is a good sport but I think this would have been a step too far, what a star Sadie is!

Caol Ila said:
Isn't that just a normal hack?

Or is just it me who thinks that?
Click to expand...

Wish you were at my yard, I could do with more exploring buddies!
 
Caol Ila said:
Isn't that just a normal hack?

Or is just it me who thinks that?

(in fairness, free range cows scare the sh!t out of me so will go to great lengths to avoid them, and Hermosa doesn't believe in working harder than she has to, so losing brakes and tanking off isn't generally a thing, but the rest of it sounds like a good day out)
Click to expand...
Yup.....if everyone survived with no lasting psychological damage then it's a good day out 😆 and you must've been well prepared.

My particular low point was when we fell in a bog on the side of the moors - the BW goes through a wood but there's no track, you just have to pick your way between the trees. My friend led the way, he had no problems so I followed in his horse's footsteps.....and we sank up to our belly. Anyway I now know that's it's typically the second horse who will sink after the first one has disturbed the ground slightly. You live and learn!! We sank front-end-first and I nearly rolled off his shoulder in surprise - then the back end sank, I came to my senses and sat up and yelled, and my saintly horse just heaved us right out and toddled off to find the nearest bit of grass. He was very wary of damp ground and puddles for quite a while after that, which I felt was entirely reasonable. We had a tide line of mud somewhere around the bottom of the saddle flaps when we got back to the trailers several hours later. You can just see it on his bum here.
 

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Following on from the tide line, when I was very young, before the internet and probably before electricity, I did a hunter trial on my 11.2 hh pony. No one had realised the river (by the power station...) had got quite so high. Apparently it was half way up my legs (I can't remember so obviously not too traumatised) and after that they rerouted. Did still win a cup though.

Well done on your hack and what a superstar.

Pretty impressed re the tractor run too.
 
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