is there anything that indicates to you, if someone can ride?

[Enfys]

I'm just a stickler for old fashioned horsemanship. Blame Colonel and Mrs Molly Sievwright and Pammy - my old training ground when Tallands was like a finishing school ! I expect you aren't the only one here that attended Talland, I did too. I'm probably the only person on here that straps their horses as well ! I am sure you aren't, I would if I had any in work.

Scruffyness = in my mind that you don't care. Personal view only ! ;-) We are all entitled to that.

Personally when I pull a horse out to ride in winter I just knock off a bit of snow, pop some tack on, or not, as the case may be, and go. No-one sees me on my own property and when it's -15C, I am very sorry, but I am not faffing around with hoof oil and laying manes. I am actually quite capable of turning myself and my horses out to a very respectable standard, I could hunt with any pack in the UK without embarrassment, it's just too damn cold to do it here

Incidently all my RS horses are always turned out for every lesson in the same code, and hell fire if they are not !!

..

 

[Starbucks]

This is probably going to get up someone's nose... but horses ridden without any noseband, yacking their heads about as they please, with the rider being tugged one way and the other.

I do that sometimes in the summer if I'm feeling very lazy, take his noseband and breastplate - less things the fasten!