HollyWoozle
Well-Known Member
I know it is a crazy time of year to embark on this endeavour, but I finally got on my Mum's horse, Noah, who hadn't been ridden in 4 years and I feel quite pleased with myself. We were given the go-ahead by our vet, teeth rasped (they are done regularly anyway), new fronts on, tack cleaned and on I got with the help of my OH. I had to go for it whilst I had the motivation or else put it off forever! Now I need some ideas for things to do with him please.
We have no real facilities and our only space for riding is now a very, very muddy paddock. The idea is to get hacking out again but I don't feel that new lockdown is the time to hack out onto our busy roads for the first time in so long (I got on before new lockdown was announced), so I am trying to think of things to do with Noah which are good prep for hacking and good for his mind. He is 16 and had spavin surgery years ago so will never be up to hard work, especially not anything involving lots of circles, plus it's just mud so not much to be done in the schooling division! He only ever did very light hacking with us and then my Mum stopped wanting to ride, which is why he has had this long break. So far we have:
- walked around a bit to check the basics still work (turning, stopping, moving off etc.)
- practiced standing still to get on
- practiced standing without me on
- started testing out some spookiness with plastic bags and a traffic cone I happen to have
I don't plan to do things more than a few times a week as I don't want him to get bored before we've begun. So far he has been totally calm about everything... so calm that he has almost been asleep, but that suits me just fine!
I was just wondering if anybody has any fun/useful ideas for things we can practice with our limited set up? I am thinking about getting out some more obstacles - perhaps some things to step over, umbrella to go past, that sort of thing. We also have a reasonably long driveway and at the road end is my uncle's lawn so we could also head down there and look at the traffic perhaps!
We have no real facilities and our only space for riding is now a very, very muddy paddock. The idea is to get hacking out again but I don't feel that new lockdown is the time to hack out onto our busy roads for the first time in so long (I got on before new lockdown was announced), so I am trying to think of things to do with Noah which are good prep for hacking and good for his mind. He is 16 and had spavin surgery years ago so will never be up to hard work, especially not anything involving lots of circles, plus it's just mud so not much to be done in the schooling division! He only ever did very light hacking with us and then my Mum stopped wanting to ride, which is why he has had this long break. So far we have:
- walked around a bit to check the basics still work (turning, stopping, moving off etc.)
- practiced standing still to get on
- practiced standing without me on
- started testing out some spookiness with plastic bags and a traffic cone I happen to have
I don't plan to do things more than a few times a week as I don't want him to get bored before we've begun. So far he has been totally calm about everything... so calm that he has almost been asleep, but that suits me just fine!
I was just wondering if anybody has any fun/useful ideas for things we can practice with our limited set up? I am thinking about getting out some more obstacles - perhaps some things to step over, umbrella to go past, that sort of thing. We also have a reasonably long driveway and at the road end is my uncle's lawn so we could also head down there and look at the traffic perhaps!